


He's Not Allowed to be Gone!

by TheLoneRebels



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Commander Cody - The One and Only, Eventual Smut, F/M, Heartbreak is only Temporary, Imagine meeting your TV crush in real life, Marianas Trench forever, More Meaningful Elevator Conversations, NASA Minions (hehe), Pets come with a Ton of Stuff, Romantic Fluff, Some people are just meant to be together, Undoubtedly better than the Second Coming for a Nerd, Unrequited requited affections are so much Fun, We've got Horses and Cats what more could you Want?, When you can't let go Go With!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23145961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLoneRebels/pseuds/TheLoneRebels
Summary: When Rex and Cody get sucked through a wormhole, Ahsoka will stop at nothing to get Rex back, even though it's not a very Jedi-like thing to do. And Cody will finally find his soulmate, a young horse trainer, when they land on Earth in the year 2150, which also happens to be an Earth that knows the entire Star Wars saga.M for now. Rating will go up when the lemons show up! :P
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Original Female Character(s), CT-7567 | Rex/Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 101
Kudos: 141





	1. Warning

**Hello there!**

**Thank you all soooooo much for checking out my story! If you like it, it's very inspiring to me if you let me know in some way, and thank you in advance for every kudos, sub, or nice review; they're my own version of caffeine. :D :D :D :D :D**

**For those who really wish I would write a one shot of their idea or would just really like to see a certain story bump up to the top of my rotation, check out the pinned post on my Facebook page, TheLoneRebel's Stories, for info. You can also find my updating schedule there and blurbs from some of my chapters. :D**

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**Disclaimer: I don't own any Star Wars characters and any OC's that resemble real people are entirely coincidental.**

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**There is an explanation of how my calendar works and a list of helpful translations for my commonly used Star Wars words in 'Flame of Hope - Everyone' if you're curious.**

**Annnnnddddd... For those of you who pay attention to the dates in my made up calendar you'll notice that this version of the story now takes place just before the Rise of Maul arc. This is done very much on purpose, as you'll see if you read all the way through to the end of the story. :D :D :D**

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**A/N: This is more or less the original concept for my other story, 'He's Gone', which took on a crazy life of its own and became an entirely different story when I decided to upgrade this one to my new writing style, so I figured I'd post a quick (ha) one shot of the original story since about 12,000 words were already written and were never going to get used otherwise, and that would just make me really really sad. :D**

**Of course, I've somehow managed to rewrite nearly all of it anyway (rolling eyes at myself) and the story looks like it's going to be more like 100,000+ words by the time I'm done, so I'm not calling it a one shot anymore and am posting it as story with who knows how many chapters. (I'm hopeless.)** ****

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**He's Not Allowed To Be Gone!**

**Warning:**

_D37/20 BBY, Kestos Minor, Kwymar Sector._

_I am Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Padawan to Anakin Skywalker, the kriffing Chosen One, and what am I doing? I'm once again playing bodyguard to his mate while watching a bunch of ridiculously overdressed senators argue about the moral ambiguities of squeezing even more credits from loyal Republic tax payers' pockets._

The teenage Togrutan huffed under her breath and shifted her weight to her other foot, letting her eyes trail off of the assembled senators gathered in the huge dining room of Ivor Drake's marble enshrouded castle, delicately picking at their ninth course of a meal that had dragged on for three hours already. Ignoring the rumbling of her own stomach at her own delayed dinner, Ahsoka instead turned her focus in the general direction of her Master, which happened to coincide with the view out the huge bank of windows across the room from her position behind Padmè Amidala's chair.

She didn't see the rich city surrounded by white tipped mountains, nor the stunning purple sky decorated in gold, pink, and blue sunset hues. No, her blindly staring eyes saw the flash of a blue lightsabre, the sleek ballet of a master swordsman, the determined advance of a thousand identical warriors, and the crumpled forms of another ten thousand or more battle droids slowly being covered by the shifting sands of Seelos' plains.

_And what is my Master doing? He's having the time of his life cutting droids up into fun little pieces only one solar system over. I can feel him laughing right now, that lucky bastard. I should be with him. Him and Obi-Wan and Rex. Doing what I've been training my whole life to do. Not standing here, holding up a wall, and needlessly guarding my Master's mate when she clearly doesn't need it._

Ahsoka huffed silently again, only just managing to stop herself from crossing her arms over her chest in disgust. She dug her blunt nails into her palms instead.

_This is stupid. No one is going to jump out of the walls to attack Padmè here. Not bounty hunters, or assassins, or Grievous, and most certainly not Maul and his oversized brother._

_Why?_

_Because no one knows she's here, that's why. We made sure everyone and their mooka heard Padmè say she was bound for Naboo to visit her family for a week._

_Anakin is being ridiculously overprotective of his mate, even with the new threat of Maul and Savage._

_Although... I suppose I would be just as overprotective of my mate if I had one._

_I wish I had one._

_Jedi or not._

_If Anakin can have a secret mate, then why can't I?_

_There's just the itty bitty problem that the only person who makes me think about mating at all still thinks of me as a child._

_But I'm not!_

_I'm sixteen now! That's considered an adult on more than half of the planets in the galaxy and is at least the age of consent in the other half._

_And who is he to talk? He's technically just a very smart boy in a man's body._

_But what a body... Yummmm._

Ahsoka's core clenched in appreciation as she happily recalled the last time she'd caught Rex without a shirt on in the training gym of the Reckless (the Resolute's successor). He wasn't as thickly built as some of his brothers, but he had lickable muscles covering him from the neck down without a single ounce of extra fat on him. He was literally a perfect specimen of a male Human, mouth-watering scars and all, and all she wanted to do was jump on him and have her wicked way with him.

And his eyes. Those golden brown eyes like a hawk's. They were so beautiful and so full of intelligence. It didn't matter to her that he supposedly had the same eyes as a few million of his brothers, to her, Rex's eyes were unique to him. She wanted to drown in them.

_Kriff, I'm so gone on him, it's pathetic._

_But I don't care._

_One day, Rex will finally see me as a woman, and when he does, I'm going to make him a very happy male. Very happy._

Ahsoka let herself succumb to her fantasies, the drone of voices in the background fading away.

* * *

_Six hours later..._

Flashing red.

Headache inducing noise.

Nauseating motion.

Hundreds of pounding footfalls.

And then obsidian blackness. Swirling blackness. Chaos filled blackness. Soul stealing blackness.

Ahsoka sat up, swallowing a cry of fear, looking around her dim bedroom frantically, anxiety coursing through her sweat soaked body as she gasped for air through a chest that felt like a nerf was sitting on it.

Seeing nothing amiss in the small room attached to Padmè's, she sent her senses sweeping out towards her charge, only finding the peacefully resting Force signature of her friend in the room next door. Reassured that nothing inimical was going on in her vicinity, Ahsoka worked on calming her heartbeat and breathing.

As the perspiration cooled on her skin, she lay back down and stared up at the ceiling. _What the frag was that? Was that a nightmare?_

_Or a vision?_

The possibility that it was the later kept her up the rest of the night, constantly checking her bond with Anakin to make sure everything was still all right in his world.

* * *

_Space, fifteen hours later..._

Rex caught himself on the wall yet again just as Anakin appeared around a corner, running down the hall towards him, Cody, and General Kenobi, who'd all been together with Admiral Yularen on the bridge when the space anomaly had suddenly appeared directly in their path. The Jedi's dark tunics and tabard were more than slightly crooked and his wavy dark blond hair was sticking straight up in places. Despite the dire situation, Rex almost cracked a smile to see Anakin looking so out of sorts. _If I didn't know better, I'd say that Amidala had been in his quarters with him again._

His General had been off duty, attempting to catch up on some much needed sleep after a three day long battle on Seelos (which Anakin hadn't stopped for more than a ten minute nap the entire time), while the Reckless carried them towards Kestos Minor through a tricky bit of space that didn't allow for lightspeed unless you liked being nothing more than a smear on the backside of the galaxy. The rest of their fleet were trailing behind them somewhere, hopefully not also getting dragged into their latest mess.

The whole area between the Seelos System and the Kestos System was a mine field of asteroid belts and dead spaceships, not to mention a favourite feeding ground for spaceship hating Purrgil due to the gas giant that passed as the area's only claim to a planet-like object.

And apparently, now also the home of a pissed off baby wormhole.

"What the kriff is going on?" Anakin yelled over the sound of the 'abandon ship' sirens to Obi-Wan as he about-faced and joined them in their run towards the escape pods. "I was having a rather pleasant dream for once and then all of a sudden I was thrown out of my bunk and now we're abandoning ship?!"

"Some sort of wormhole hurricane," Obi-Wan yelled back. "Never seen anything like it, but as you can probably sense, the Reckless is stuck in it and being shredded."

"Yah, I got that," Anakin said rather dryly even as he paused, turned, and grabbed Rex before he was thrown into a wall, using the Force to hold them both up. "It feels like we're spinning in circles while being shaken by a very mad rancor."

Rex laughed as Obi-Wan grabbed Cody too when the ship bucked twice as hard as before. "Excellent description, Sir. I'll be sure to add that one to the report."

"You do that, Rex," Anakin said with a hint of a smile. And they all took off once more, taking advantage of smoother running as the ship settled down for a moment.

"Please tell me you're on your way, Captain," Fives' voice suddenly said inside Rex's and Cody's helmets. "I've packed the last of us into the final escape pod in this sector of the ship. And the computer is reading that the other sections of pods are rapidly ejecting."

"We're almost there," Rex reassured the ARC trooper who served as his second in command.

After only another half minute of running, the little group made it to the hallway of escape pods. The last pod was stuffed full with clones from the 501st in their white and blue armour. Fives paused in his pacing just outside the hatchway of the pod when he saw the Generals and his brothers running towards him. "Thank the stars, you made it, Sirs. We were getting worried."

Anakin smiled in at his men, feeling the waves of relief from them to see him and Rex even as he noticed there was no possible way all five of them were going to fit in the pod as well. He exchanged glances with Obi-Wan, both of them thinking the same thing. They would Force push Rex and Cody into the pod and stay behind. They could run like lightning to another section of the ship and hopefully catch another pod.

Rex and Cody had also come to the same conclusion, and being the men they were, it never even occurred to them to take the place of safety before their Generals. They also knew exactly what the Jedi would do in the situation. They exchanged the smallest hint of a nod with their helmeted heads and palmed their blasters, flicking the switch to stun with their thumbs.

As Anakin and Obi-Wan turned around to grab their friends and forcibly shove them in the pod, they found themselves shot instead, not even leaving time for a cry of disbelief.

Fives caught their falling forms by their tunics with a hand each, his inherited clone reflexes excellent, as usual. Helmeted heads exchanged stares as Rex told Fives to pull the Jedi into the pod and go!

Fives wasn't pleased about leaving Captain Rex and Commander Cody behind, but he knew how to obey orders from his commanding officers, brothers or not. He nodded once and dragged the unconscious Jedi into the pod, placing them on the feet of his brothers already lining the small space.

Rex smacked the button to close the pod door and hit the next one to eject it from the ship. _May the Force be with you, my brothers,_ he thought solemnly as he watched the pod disappear into the pitch-darkness of space.

As if he had read his mind, Fives' voice came through over the comms in their buckets. "As our Jedi would say if they weren't out cold; may the Force be with you, Sirs, and good luck. I promise we'll come looking for you after you get off that flaming ball of death. You keep your shebs alive until then, you hear?"

Rex held the vibrating wall as his chest tightened with all of the emotions that were catching up to him. "We hear, Fives. That goes double for you too, vod."

"Understood," came back the barely audible reply of Fives. And then the comms went to static as the Reckless was pulled even further into the wormhole and the escape pod joined the fleet of little pods valiantly flying away from the space anomaly.

* * *

_Meanwhile, back at the Drake Castle…_

After listening to the senators blab about the same political issues for three days, Ahsoka thought she just might go stark raving mad if she heard the word 'credit' one more time. So she tuned them all out.

Whilst portraying the appearance of holding up yet another wall, the teenage Jedi closed her eyes and stretched out her senses into the Force, drawing comfort from the familiar currents of power and life. The area surrounding the castle was calm and peaceful with nary a ripple of ill intent. Not that she expected there to be any trouble; none of the senators had received any death threats for almost two straight months. But here she was anyway, guarding them.

_Blah._

Expanding her focus, Ahsoka's mind brushed over the busy city life and then turned away, back up to the top of a mountain, where the surroundings were cool and quiet. Imagining herself there, sitting cross-legged on a flat rock that had been windswept of its snow, Ahsoka let herself drift in the Force for a few minutes, just being.

She couldn't imagine not being able to connect to the Force like this. It was empowering and humbling and helped her control her inherently predatory and overenthusiastic nature. Her ancestors had been some of the most feared hunters in the galaxy, before they were tamed into slaves for their looks and other 'skills', which meant there were times when this war had brought out her usually suppressed instincts that would have alarmed her Master if he'd been anyone other than the unconventional Anakin Skywalker.

She would forever be grateful to Master Yoda for pairing her with him.

Thinking of Anakin inspired her to follow her bond with him to check on him yet again, still a little disturbed about her strange dream or vision from the night before. She knew he was on his way here to escort Padmè and the other senators back to Coruscant (and steal some alone time with his mate), but she still had to check.

Fortunately, if he wasn't battling a droid army, sleeping, or exchanging words or bodily fluids with Padmè, he always welcomed having her mind brush his with a mental hug. They both needed those mental hugs more than they would ever admit to anyone else, just to reaffirm that no matter what the Jedi Council said, they would always be connected to each other.

Ahsoka heaved a mental sigh when she brushed up against Anakin's sleeping mind. He'd been sleeping the last time she'd checked, too. _I wish he'd wake up already. I'm bored. And I want to talk to him about my vision. But he's been busy or asleep ever since._

_Grrrrr._

_Wait. What is that?_

Ahsoka frowned as a sense of danger and a disturbance in what should have been the calm emptiness of space seemed to surround Anakin. _What's going on?_

She reached for the slightly weaker bond she had with Obi-Wan and found him mentally unresponsive as well. _They're almost never asleep at the same time when travelling, taking turns overseeing things. What the kriff is happening over there?_

Now really worried, Ahsoka went for her last resort when it came to hopefully getting answers, since her bond with Rex was very much one sided and he didn't know that she could sense him if she really tried. And because it was only one-sided, she'd never mentally talked to him like she did with Anakin or Obi-Wan, but she could sense his emotions and get a pretty good sense of his wellbeing. Her frown increased as she felt that Rex was even more embroiled in the sense of danger than her Masters were and that he was quite anxious and maybe even a little afraid.

_Rex is never afraid. Not for himself anyway. What in the galaxy is wrong?_

_Frag, I wish I could make him hear me._

_What if… What if I could? I've never actually tried, have I?_

So Ahsoka poured every ounce of power she had into yelling into Rex's naturally shielded mind, determinedly battering at the imaginary wall that blocked his thoughts from everyone. (His proximity to mind reading Jedi had inspired him to build upon what genetics had already given him.)

 _"_ _REX! REX! CAN YOU HEAR ME?! PLEASE, REX, LET ME IN!"_

She nearly sobbed with relief when she felt his shield weaken a little and his emotions spike with surprise.

 _"_ _Ahsoka?"_

* * *

Rex staggered for the hundredth time in the last ten minutes as he ran beside Cody, but his time, it had nothing to do with the pitching and rolling of the ship.

A familiar voice had just whispered across his mind, he'd swear it. One that haunted his fantasies at night and inspired in him a new level of dedication to his purpose in life that he hadn't felt until he met her, because he wanted to make the galaxy safe for her again. And considering the current situation and how close they were to Kestos Minor, he wasn't too terribly surprised that the girl had somehow managed to contact him mentally. He found it amusing, though, that she'd completely forgotten that they had perfectly good comm systems that would have done the same without the mental intrusion. _Or maybe they aren't working because of the wormhole?_

So, giving her the benefit of the doubt, he consciously imagined himself letting a Force user into his mind for the first time since Ventress had mostly managed to mind trick him back on Teth, because it was HER, and he could deny her nothing.

 _"_ _Ahsoka?"_

 _"_ _Rex! Thank Force. You let me in! Thank you, thank you, thank you! What the frag is going on over there? Why does it feel like my Masters are both out cold and why does it feel like the area around you is having a temper tantrum of epic proportions?"_

Rex winced as he and Cody ran for the hangar, having already accessed the ship's computer and seen that all of the escape pods had been launched. They hoped to find a working shuttle or LAATi or even a fighter that they could escape the dying war ship in. _"Nothing to worry about, Commander,"_ Rex lied as he bounced off a wall and skidded around a corner. _"Just another day in the war."_

 _"So everything's going to poodoo and you're about to die. Without me. Again,"_ Ahsoka thought back, sending him a healthy dose of amused disgust.

Rex pictured himself grinning. _"That about sums it up."_

Ahsoka sent him a picture of her eyes rolling around in her head like loose marbles, eliciting a mental laugh from the clone. _"Do you need me to send help? Or come help? I can be there in an hour, I think, based on what time you were supposed to arrive."_

 _"That's actually a really good idea,"_ Rex admitted as he and Cody all but fell through the door to the hangar. He suppressed the urge to groan as they found what used to be an orderly row of gunships and shuttles now little more than a jumble of smashed parts against one wall and then winced some more as the ship changed its tilt and the pile of debris started sliding across the hangar towards the other wall. Anything that brushed the openings to the central runway fell out through the faintly glowing blue shields and was instantly sucked up into space. _"You could send a rescue team to retrieve the escape pods. The generals are in one."_

 _"_ _Will do. I'm going to interrupt the senators' blab party now. No, wait. You know, you haven't actually told me what's going on yet."_

 _"_ _Because I disn't want to worry you,"_ Rex thought back while exchanging looks of resigned acceptance with Cody at the hopelessness of the available ships on this side of the hangar. They ran for the hallway at the front of the hangar that would let them get to the other side without getting sucked up into space. The other half of the hangar had all of the starfighters, most of which were docked to the walls and wouldn't be anywhere near as damaged, if at all.

 _"_ _Just tell me."_ Her tone left him feeling like he didn't have a choice. So he did.

 _"_ _We're stuck in a very temperamental newborn wormhole."_

 _"_ _Well, kriff. That explains the strange vision I had last night. You stay alive until I can get to you, you hear me?"_

Somehow, Rex wasn't surprised that Ahsoka had had a vision about their situation. Of all three Jedi that he was close to, Ahsoka had more visions than Anakin and Obi-Wan combined by almost double. _"I'll do my best."_

 _"_ _Good. NOW I'll be right back."_

Rex cracked a smile as they ran, and then a few moments later, it widened even further as a little silver and blue droid careened out of a turbolift doorway towards them, beeping frantically about finding his master.

* * *

Ahsoka dashed over to the table full of senators, startling them into silence. Stopping by Padmè's chair, she didn't bother to keep her voice down when she said, "The Reckless just flew right into a wormhole! We need to send them help ASAP!"

Padmè leapt up from her chair, nearly sending it crashing to the ground, eyes wide with alarm as everyone else at the table also stirred and gasped. "Anakin?"

"In a pod, unconscious. I don't know why."

"Kriff," the woman muttered under her breath, before she turned to Senator Drake. "We need to mount a rescue party. Now!"

"Of course," the strawberry blonde headed woman replied, already pulling out a commlink.

Ahsoka left them too it and returned the majority of her focus to Rex, the man who could have been her perfect soulmate already if their situations weren't what they were.


	2. Unresponsive

**Unresponsive:**

“Clone Masters! Have you seen my Master?! He usually meets me at his fighter whenever the big ship is blowing up!” the astromech beeped in rapid-fire binary as he rolled towards them.

"Artoo!" Rex called, a little startled but happy to see the droid as he smiled at the intelligent machine’s unintentional humour; he didn’t have enough fingers to count how many times the ‘big ship’ had blown up in the last couple of years. "The General's fine. He’s on a pod. You might want to come with us, though."

“Oh, okay. I can do that,” Artoo somehow managed to sound both relieved and disappointed as he turned around and powered up the tilted hallway beside the clones. “What about Master’s new starfighter? He just finished modifying it.”

“You can retrieve it for General Skywalker if you want, Artoo,” Cody said as they ran. “But Rex and I won’t both fit in it.”

The droid was silent, mulling that over.

Ahsoka’s alarmed voice popped back into the dyed blond clone’s head. _"Rexxxxxx. Why do I get the impression you're not in any of those escape pods?"_

Rex sent her a picture of him with an apologetic wince. _"Because I'm not?"_

 _"REX!"_ Ahsoka wailed in his mind.

He flinched as he ran up the slanted hallway, calves straining. _"I'm sorry, Ahsoka. I don't know if I'm actually going to make it out of this one, but I sure am trying."_

 _"Oh, Rexi,"_ Ahsoka whispered across his mind. _"Don't say that. You know I can't lose you. I…"_

Rex never knew if she finished that thought or not because Cody whooped, “Yes!” as they entered the fighter hanger and found most of them still intact and docked, as expected.

“Thank frag,” Rex said to Cody as they ran to the first available ship in the line and jumped nimbly up into the yellow painted Y-Wing. Cody took the cockpit and started flipping switches and Rex jumped in the gunner's seat in the bubble turret. Artoo waffled for a moment, his dome rotating between their chosen vehicle and the yellow and grey interceptor he’d left running and magnetically locked to the floor.

After two more swivels of indecision, he flew up into the droid's spot and helped get the fighter going faster than recommended by the manufacturer. “Master would want me to take care of his Captain before his starfighter,” Artoo beeped by way of explanation.

“That’s…” Cody’s voice trailed off then finished with, “Good.” Then on their private comm he said to Rex. “I never give that astromech enough credit for how smart and caring he actually is. I’ve never met another one like him. Any other astro would have gotten in the starfighter because that’s what they were programmed to do.”

“I know,” Rex replied solemnly as the Y-Wing flew through the shield. ”I think it’s because Anakin actually treats the droid like he’s his family, so he’s learned more human emotions.”

“That makes sense.”

* * *

Ahsoka temporarily lost track of Rex’s thoughts as she reeled with the shock of what she’d almost told him.

_I almost confessed that I love him. Holy poodoo. Now really isn’t the time for that mess to make itself known. Not when he needs to concentrate on whatever the kriff he’s doing to save himself and Cody. And Artoo, apparently._

_Force, what a mess._

_But… I think… When all of this is over, I’m just going to tell him. I want what Anakin has. And I just know that Rex is my perfect mate. He can’t reject me. He won’t want to once he knows how I feel._

_Right?_

“Ahsoka!”

The togrutan girl startled when Dormè shook her shoulder gently. She stared at Padmè’s handmaiden with unseeing eyes for two blinks before she brought herself back to the here and now. “What?”

“We’re leaving now. Are you coming or are you just going to stand here in the dining room?” the older girl teased gently.

“Sorry. I’m coming. I’m just a little distracted trying to be in two places at once.”

“You want me to make sure your body is heading in the right direction for you if you try and run through a wall or something?” Dormè offered with an amused smile.

Ahsoka laughed quietly. Once. “Sure, that would be great. Thanks.”

The girls exchanged fleeting smiles and then took off running for the exit of the massive dining room and Ahsoka tuned back into Rex’s thoughts just in time to hear him say, "Now we're getting somewhere!"

* * *

_"Now we're getting where?"_ Ahsoka demanded, the subtle pressure of her presence popping back into his mind.

 _"Now we're getting out of this mess,"_ Rex replied happily. _"The Reckless is done for, but Cody, Artoo, and I have left it behind. All that's left is to get out of this shabla wormhole."_

_"You had bloody well better!"_

_"We're trying. Honest,"_ Rex thought to her as Cody cursed and fought the controls as the space storm flung the Y-Wing in random directions. Pieces of the Reckless were flying dangerously close to them, caught in the same storm. Artoo kept beeping out notes of alarm and demanding that Cody let him fly.

Off to their left, the flaming cruiser suddenly burst into a ball of white light as the hyperdrive fuel exploded. Pieces of the Reckless were flung in thousands of directions. _Oh shit!_

 _“Oh shit, what?!”_ Ahsoka screeched in his mind.

Rex winced. _“The Reckless just exploded. We’re…”_

Inevitably, and before he could finish his thought, their Y-Wing was struck, sending them spinning even further out of control and one of the engines burst into flames. Not yet strapped into his seat, Rex was flung into the glass bubble, his helmet smacking into it with skull crushing force and making a spider web of cracks in the transparisteel.

* * *

"REX!" Ahsoka cried out loud as her sense of his mind suddenly went blank. She held onto the tenuous connection she had with his essence, barely reassured that he seemed to still be alive, but freaking out nonetheless.

_Oh frag. Oh stars. Rex! He’s hurt!_

And then, maybe half a minute later, even that disappeared.

Ahsoka nearly fell to her knees at the sudden loss, her heart feeling like it had been torn out of her chest and then stabbed through. She staggered to the wall of the hallway she’d been running down, using it to hold her up. Losing the only man she’d ever considered for a mate was beyond devastating to her, even if she’d never actually acted on it because she was a Jedi. Mate or not, he was still her best friend. She honestly didn’t know how she was going to continue on without him.

"Rex, Rex, Rex," she moaned under her breath over and over, without even realizing it. She didn’t hear Dormè call her name in alarm, or hear her yell for Padmè. All she heard was the white noise of her grief turning her mind into mush.

Hands cupped her shoulders and pulled her into a soft bosom and rocked her gently from side to side. At the familiar scent and presence of her friend and Anakin’s mate, Ahsoka started crying silent tears and wrapped her arms around Padmè, holding on maybe a little harder than she should have, so grateful to not be alone right now.

The older woman stroked her back lek gently for a minute until Ahsoka somehow found the strength to lift her heavy head and look at her. Ahsoka inhaled her first real breath of air in over a minute as she took in Padmè's concerned features. "What's wrong with Rex, Ahsoka?" Padmè asked gently of her young friend, her wide brown eyes filled with concern and sympathy.

"Gone," Ahsoka croaked out through her tight throat. "He's gone."

Padmè exchanged worried glances with Dormè at how defeated Ahsoka looked. She tightened her arms around Ahsoka as the girl blinked back the stubborn tears that refused to stop. “Hey. You said he was in a wormhole, right?”

Ahsoka sucked in a breath and blinked, her mind starting to make the connection that Padmè was getting at. “Right.”

“Well, wouldn’t it make sense that you wouldn’t be able to feel him anymore if the wormhole just spit him out into another place really really far from here?”

The air in Ahsoka’s lungs caught and held as hope dawned through her. _Of course! The same thing happens when Anakin is on the opposite side of the galaxy from me. I can barely feel him. And my bond with Anakin is so much stronger than the wimpy one I have with Rex._ “You’re right, Padmè. Thank you.” She pulled back from the older woman’s arms and gave her a wavering but genuine smile of determination as she swiped at the moisture on her face. “Let’s go. I have a clone Captain to rescue from wherever he’s ended up. He’s not allowed to be gone.”

Padmè and Dormè gave her identical smiles of relief to see her back to herself. “That’s the spirit. And I have a hus… um… friend to rescue.”

Ahsoka raised a brow marking, barely holding back the urge to snicker. _I knew it!_ “Right. A friend. With benefits.”

“Ahsoka.” Padmè chided, shooting her a look as they all started moving briskly down the hallway again in a graceful jog. (Because Padmè was incapable of doing anything that wasn’t graceful .)

The girl grinned back, unremorseful. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. But seriously, pretty much everyone knows you and Anakin are a thing anyway.”

“What?! Everyone?”

“Well, maybe not the press and the galaxy at large, but at least half of the clone army and everyone in the Order that live at the Temple.”

Padmè paused for half a step, eyes widening almost comically. “Hunh. Wow. I thought Anakin was supposed to get in trouble or banished or something if they found out.”

Ahsoka snorted as they reached the ramp of Padmè’s sleek, chromium plated, H-type Nubian yacht. “As if. He’s the freaking Chosen One. No one’s going to kick him out unless he falls to the Dark side or something equally terrible.”

Dormè closed the ramp behind them and Captain Typho flew the ship up into the sky to join the other ships already headed towards the spacial disaster before they’d even taken their seats in the cockpit. Padmè kind of fell into her chair, still looking a bit stunned. “This changes everything. I’m so tired of the secrets.”

 _I bet you are._ Ahsoka reached over and squeezed her forearm gently in support. “Secrets are never good for anyone.”

_And if I get my Rex back, I am definitely telling him mine._

* * *

"Rex! Rex!" Cody called after he and Artoo got the fighter back under some semblance of control, having heard him cry out and then go silent. The lack of answer over his helmet comm worried him greatly, but he didn't have time to check on his brother just yet. Even as he watched in disbelief, the fighter was dragged deeper into the wormhole, the somehow swirling black space around him nauseating to look at even through his visor.

 **Rex is unconscious,** Artoo sent him over the fighter's computer.

"Great," Cody mumbled, worried.

And then the air pressure in the cockpit went insane, making it feel as though Cody was being crushed from the inside out. His brain screamed as his bones whimpered. And then there was nothing as his eyes closed involuntarily and he blacked out.

* * *

Cody gasped as consciousness returned. He looked around him frantically for a moment and saw that he was still in the edges of the wormhole, but it seemed to be swirling him out now instead of pulling him in. Cody grabbed the controls again, but nothing was responsive. “Artoo?”

 **Working on it,** the droid printed back on the screen.

The man breathed a sigh of relief only seconds later as the remaining engine sputtered to life. This time, Cody let the droid fly.

"Rex?" he tried again, craning a look backwards over his shoulder, but he couldn't see his brother in the gun turret. The bubble was severely cracked but still intact, which meant that Rex had to be in there somewhere; probably on the floor. The bad news was that with the cracked bubble, Rex (if he was still alive) was probably relying on his helmet's limited supply of air right now. Rex didn't have long before he'd become starved for oxygen.

Setting his jaw in resignation at the worst, he still hoped for the best. “Faster, Artoo.”

The ship picked up a little speed while Artoo flew in as straight a line as possible towards the peaceful looking opening of the wormhole. The fighter bucked and fought him every kilometre he gained, but Cody was impressed by how the droid was winning the argument.

And then they were spit out into normal space, and Cody almost cheered. Spotting a hospitable looking blue and green planet not too far away, Cody did cheer. “Head for the planet, Artoo, as fast as you can.” If they could land on that planet within the next minute or so, Rex still had a chance of surviving without brain damage.

Feeling the urgency of the moment, Cody grabbed the controls again. “Actually, I’ll fly, Artoo. You do whatever you can do to get this poor bucket of bolts going faster," Cody said, thanking the Force that they had been lucky enough to have an astromech along to help boost things along. And the fact that the General's favourite droid wasn't a pile of flaming bits right now was definitely a good thing. If they ever got home, Cody was looking forward to seeing Skywalker's reaction to being reunited with a droid he probably assumed was permanently lost by now.

Artoo sent another, **Working on it.**

“Thanks.”

A couple of seconds later, the ship picked up speed even as it whined alarmingly and warning lights flashed all over the console.

Cody ignored them as he flew past a... weird metal thing that might be a satellite and entered the atmosphere of the planet. More systems crashed as they plummeted in a vaguely controlled fashion towards the earth below.

The clouds parted and Cody was now looking at a green mountainous region beside a long ocean coastline. The ground approached much too quickly as the fighter continued to essentially fall from the sky, the last engine sputtering badly. "Kay, Artoo, whatever you can do to help me out here, that would be shabla fantastic," Cody muttered, tension radiating through him as he held the fighter's nose up out of sheer determination.

 **Working on it,** the droid printed out yet again. Cody could practically read the implied eye roll in the aurebesh writing on the screen.

"Thanks," Cody said again with real feeling as the flight of the Y-Wing smoothed out and Cody felt like he had something resembling control again.

Which was a good thing, because they were almost on top of the mountain range now. Cody flew around it, looking for a good place to land. Spotting a cleared pasture, he aimed for that and flicked the button to activate the landing gear.

Nothing happened.

"Artoo... Landing gear?"

 **Unresponsive,** came back the reply a few seconds later.

Cody grunted as he flew over the tops of pointed green trees, startling some sort of four-legged animals into flight below him. Suddenly spotting a large rectangle of what looked like sand with strange obstacles scattered throughout, Cody aimed for that instead. Sand would make a much better crash landing than the grass he'd originally been aiming for.

The bottom of the fighter skimmed over the fence surrounding the sand and hit the white stuff with too much momentum for Cody's liking, but he went with it, having no other choice.

White particles flew up into the air, and some of the strange colourful obstacles flew too, as the Y-Wing skidded a deep groove into the sand and finally came to a stop only a metre or two from the far fenceline.

Cody shuddered out a sigh of relief, slumping in his chair for a moment before he jolted himself back into action.

_Rex!_

Releasing his safety straps, he popped the cockpit hatch and clambered back to the gun turret. As he suspected, his brother was crumpled up on the floor of the space, more or less wrapped around the base of the chair.

Grimacing in sympathy at the awkward position, Cody punched the button to open the bubble. It sprang back with a groan and promptly fell apart in a shower of transparisteel pieces. Gaping at how close Rex had come to being spaced, he thanked the Force again and climbed down onto the seat of the chair. Kneeling on it so as not to step on his brother, he reached down and took off Rex's helmet. There was a fair amount of blood coating the side of his head and seeping into the neck of his black bodysuit, but he was visibly breathing. Cody closed his eyes in relief for a moment before shaking his head. "You're getting just as reckless and stupid as your general, vod. Would it have been that much of a bother to actually use your safety harness?"

"Yes," Rex mumbled as he cracked an eye open and turned his head slightly to look up at his brother. Putting a hand to his pounding head, he struggled to a sitting position in the tight space on the floor. Squinting up at the blue sky with an occasional fluffy cloud floating past a bright sun, a single eyebrow twitched upwards for half a second. "Where are we?"

Cody laughed once as he climbed onto the top of the fighter and helped Rex out. "I have no idea, vod."

* * *

_Earth, United States of America, Washington D.C., May 18, 2150_

The command room of NASA Headquarters was in a state of barely organized chaos as more information came in from the International Space Station, various satellites, and the data probes that had been sent to investigate the wormhole.

The excitement and stress in the room increased tenfold when the wormhole started to spit out what looked like pieces of metal debris. And then one of the pieces of debris turned out to be an actual spaceship and it flew right towards Earth.

The room went nuts.

"Sir, its flying right towards us!"

"Someone track its course!"

"Where'd it go?!"

"Did it survive the atmospheric burn?!"

"Come on, people. Tell me where it landed!"

"British Columbia, Sir. About two hundred kilometres north of the Canadian border."

"Wilderness then?"

"Essentially, yes. There's only a few farms up there."

"Good. That's good. No need to panic people any more than they already are. Let's try and keep this under wraps, people. Someone get a containment team up there, ASAP!"

"Already sent, Sir."

"Good. You're in charge of that mess, Gibson. Everyone else, let's get a move on gathering up all that debris for examination. It looks like we've finally got an answer to the age old question of whether or not we're alone in the universe."


	3. Connection

**A/N: This chapter is for everyone who has lost someone to COVID-19. I can’t imagine what you are going through right now, but I want to thank everyone who is on board with social distancing to help slow the curve of death. Both of my parents and one of my friends are on the high risk list and if shutting down the world is what it takes to help them stay (relatively) healthy and alive, then I’m all for it.**

**Adversely, my heart also goes out to everyone who is financially affected by the loss of work because of the preventative measures being taken by most. I hope you make it through these tough times all right.**

**And thank you to all of the caregivers who are doing their best to take care of the sick at great risk to themselves.**

**This song is dedicated to all of you.**

* * *

**Connection:**

_Meanwhile, somewhere in the British Columbia Coastal Mountains…_

**_“When your tears are spent on your last pretense_ **

**_and your tired eyes refuse to close and sleep in your defence._ **

**_When it’s in your spine like you've walked for miles_ **

**_and the only thing you want is just to be still for a while.”_ **

Tezza Stranik paused the movement of the soft bristled brush over her horse’s shiny red coat as the haunting lyrics playing over the speakers struck a chord deep in her chest. The male singer’s heartfelt words felt like they’d been ripped from her very soul. She resumed the smooth movements of her arm, stroking with the direction of the short fur. _It’s like he’s singing about my life. Some days, all I want to do is go to sleep and never wake up._

As the chorus filled with gorgeous harmonies rang through the empty stable alleyway, the young woman touched a button on the watch sized mini computer strapped around her wrist, remotely turning up the volume on the barn radio. CeCe’s ears perked forward as the music caught his attention from the drowsy half nap he’d settled into at the familiar grooming routine.

**_“Oh way oh way oh oooo. Oh way oh way oh oooo._ **

**_And if your heart wears thin I will hold you up_ **

**_and I will hide you when it gets too much._ **

**_I'll be right beside you,_ **

**_I’ll be right beside you.”_ **

“You like the song too, hunh?” the girl murmured to the tall, Warmblood horse that had been given to her by her parents as an eighteenth birthday present only two days before they and her little brother had fallen ill from the super virus that had swept around the globe in only three days and wiped out more than half of the planet’s population.

That had been almost one year ago exactly, since today was her birthday again.

Earth’s systems had survived, just, and everything was basically back to normal again, but Tezza had been left without a family and very very broke since her parents had been self employed as horse trainers, which made just enough to pay the bills for their family, and they’d used all of their spare cash to purchase CeCe for her, a promising young show jumping prospect, from the breeding farm they worked for.

After finishing high school, she’d abandoned her dream of becoming a professional singer, and had taken up the job of training the young horses at Never Too High Stables in replace of her father and to pay for CeCe’s board. Another trainer from Germany had been hired to ride and compete the older horses, which is where almost everyone was right now, two full trailers full of talented horses having left just that morning for a show in Langley.

Tears stung her eyes at the words of the song. _No one is beside me anymore. No one._

“Well, except for you, CeCe,” she whispered, and one of his ears flicked back, showing that the bay gelding had heard her.

The next verse hit her even harder.

**_“When you're overwhelmed and you've lost your breath_ **

**_and the space between the things you know is blurry nonetheless._ **

**_When you try to speak but you make no sound_ **

**_and the words you want are out of reach but they've never been so loud.”_ **

_That is sooooo me. So me. I’m so alone on a planet of billions._

Swallowing back the urge to cry, and with no one around to hear her but the barn cats and her beloved horse, the orphan girl sang along with the chorus that she’d already memorized after just one hearing, her clear soprano voice harmonizing seamlessly with the all male band. And she continued to sing whenever the words repeated themselves as she finished up making her horse sparkle, brushing out his black mane and tail.

 _That was beautiful,_ she thought when the last note trailed away into silence, still a little misty eyed. _I’m definitely adding that to my playlist. I wonder who…_

The radio D.J. cut off her thought as he answered it.

**“That was Beside You by Vancouver’s own Marianas Trench from all the way back in 2009, folks!”**

_Wow, that’s OLD!_

**“What a tearjerker, eh?”**

_Understatement._

**“Let’s all thank Samantha from Fernie, B.C. for that one. Just another example of lost gems from so long ago and why we started the ‘You Name It We Play It’ hour dedicated to forgotten Canadian music here on 99.9 The Coast FM. Up next, from 2097, a song by the Grammy winning artist, Double Dawn, called The End of Dreams.”**

The radio started playing another haunting melody which Tezza was already familiar with, the song already on her playlist. She sang along as she efficiently tacked up CeCe, and by the time it was over, she was doing up the chinstrap on her helmet as she led her horse down the hallway and towards the outside world, CeCe’s big, shod feet clip-clopping rhythmically down the cement floor behind her.

Just before they reached the circle of sunshine on the floor, the D.J. came back on, sounding a little breathless and very much excited. Curious, Tezza stopped to listen.

**"Breaking news! A wormhole just appeared in space above Earth! Yes. I said wormhole. It's not much further away from Earth than the moon is and is already creating havoc with the satellites on our side of the planet, so don't be alarmed if you temporarily lose your internet service. Fortunately, the International Space Station was in orbit away from the spacial anomaly when it appeared, so it hasn't been affected. Authorities say there's no need to be alarmed yet, so you should continue on with your life as usual."**

Tezza snorted at that. _As if humans aren't going to go out of their minds with panic. The meteorite scare of '39 and the pandemic last year was proof enough of that._ Fortunately, she was out in the middle of nowhere (the nearest town a good five minute flight away) and had just made her weekly shopping trip yesterday, so she didn't have to worry about the inevitable mad hoarding and screaming that was undoubtedly taking over the big cities like Vancouver already.

**"You may be thinking this is a hoax, but it's the honest truth, folks. I saw a video taken by the Space Station just minutes ago and this is the real deal. NASA is posting the video on various social medias, so you should be able to see it for yourself any second now. Authorities want me to remind you again that there is no need to panic. The anomaly is far enough away from Earth that it won't affect us in any drastic fashion, so stay calm out there, people, and try to remember how to be the civilized race we claim to be. I'll keep you posted on any updates that may arise, so stay tuned."**

Tezza shook her head in amused disbelief as she walked on and commercials starting playing like normal. The rest of the world could basically fall apart and she'd still be doing the exact same thing; because someone had to take care of the horses, no matter what was happening elsewhere. She thought about looking up the wormhole video on her wrist comp, but decided to leave it for later while she ate lunch. For now, she just wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet of the practically abandoned barn, the birds chirping merrily in the pine trees, and the warm sunshine beating down on her from above.

Leading CeCe over to the mounting block in front of the barn, she tightened the girth and pulled down the stirrups, then tossed the reins over his head. He’d perked up from napping mode to frisky mode now that they were outside, but he stood obediently still as she climbed up the two steps and then swung up on to his back. Patting him on the neck, she murmured, “Good boy.”

Squeezing slightly with her calves she sent him off in a brisk walk down the driveway. “What do you think, boo? Shall we go for a little hack around the pasture first before doing some ring work?”

He didn’t answer her, of course, but his ears pricked even further forward and his pace picked up when she pointed him towards the trail that led through the trees that covered more than half of the hundred acre horse farm. Tezza took that as a yes, and a small smile curved her lips as the steady rhythm of his walk soothed her distraught emotions from earlier.

After working with horses fulltime for the better part of a year, Tezza didn’t regret giving up her dream of becoming a singer. The gentle animals were exactly what she needed to fill the empty chasm in her soul and she couldn’t see giving them up now even if she were to magically be ‘discovered’ out here in the middle of nowhere.

* * *

Tezza raised her face to the sun as it dappled through the trees, enjoying the spring sunshine after four straight days of showers.

Under her, CeCe walked enthusiastically, ears flicking all over the place as the gelding checked out the forest around them, occasionally snorting at a bird or squirrel is they walked past. Tezza laughed as the four year old horse spotted a particularly suspicious looking tree stump and gave it a good eyeball as he sidled past it. She gave him a reassuring pat on the neck. "It's just a stump, buddy. Just like a hundred other stumps that you've seen."

He flicked an ear back at the sound of her voice and relaxed again into a smooth walk.

The first thing that made her realize that something was wrong the sudden tension running through every muscle in the horse under her and the sudden pounding of his heart, that she could literally feel through his thick hide and her leather riding boots. And then came the far off sound of galloping horses coming from the pasture to the right.

Tezza immediately tensed as well and stopped CeCe, trying to see through the trees. He bounced under her, prancing on his toes, determined to be excited if the other horses were. He whirled around, tracking the running herd, and snorting like a raptor from one of her favourite old movies, Jurassic Park.

Tezza held him in place with a firm hand on the reins and by keeping her legs clamped around him, not letting him run back down the path like he was inclined to do, to follow the galloping herd.

And then the sound of a whining engine registered, with some background crackles that didn't sound good at all.

Peering up through the tops of the tall evergreen trees, Tezza could just make out a flash of yellow and what might be flames go streaking by, over the young horse pasture.

"Oh, shit," she muttered as she let CeCe power trot back down the path towards the barn. Someone was crashing their plane and she had a bad feeling they were doing it on the stable's property. _Please, just don't let it be in one of the pastures_ , she thought, because the horses were obviously freaked out enough as is.

Ten seconds later, Tezza winced at the sound of something hitting the ground hard echoed through the trees.

_Yep, they crashed all right._

After what felt like too long, but unwilling to let CeCe run home because that set a bad precedent that was dangerous to deal with, they finally emerged from the forest and Tezza got her first clear view of the plane that had crashed.

It was sitting at the end of the sand ring, smoking, a trail of ruined jumps and a deep gouge in the expensive white sand footing behind it. In the pasture that abutted the ring, a group of twenty young horses were staring at the wreckage with big eyes, curious ears, snorting nostrils, and raised tails.

CeCe wasn't much better, prancing forward only at her encouragement.

And then a man in white and yellowish orange streaked... armour? emerged from the cockpit of what she realized was something more like a fighter plane than a personal vehicle. She'd never seen anything like it in real life, so her first thought was that it must be from one of the overseas air forces.

The man climbed over the top of his fighter and popped another cockpit bubble, soon emerging with another man in white and blue armour. That one looked rather wobbly on his feet, wasn't wearing the full helmet the other one was, and was definitely bleeding from a head wound. _That’s not good._

By this point, Tezza and CeCe had made it to the fenceline of the jumping ring. "Hey!" she called. "Just give me a second and I can help you!"

Cody and Rex's heads turned towards the female voice. Rex squinted, trying to get the blurry image that wobbled around from afar to focus as he tried to make sense of the words. "What did she say?" he asked his brother, sitting on the edge of the opening into the gunner's seat.

Cody shook his head as he studied the female via the zoom function in his helmet. She was on one of the handsome four legged creatures, wearing a black helmet that covered the top of her head. Her face was pretty in a soft way, with big eyes he couldn't quite make the colour of yet, a cute little nose, bow shaped lips, and a medium skin tone that was neither light nor dark, but holding a rich tan, much like his. "Don't know, vod. Never heard that language before. But I have to assume it's an offer of help or maybe a 'what the kriff are you doing, crashing your fighter into my land?'"

Rex chuckled and then winced, putting a hand up to hold his pounding head together.

Cody glanced at Artoo, who was watching them with his version of concern, making soft trilling sounds. (He always found it funny that a droid with no face could be so expressive.) "Hey, you ever hear that language before?"

Artoo shook his dome, beeping out a, "Nope."

"Great." Cody waved at the female, acknowledging that they heard her, but not calling anything back, because it was obvious they'd never understand each other anyway. Gripping Rex's helmet that he was still holding, he jumped down to the ground. "Come on, vod, Artoo. No point staying up there. This wreck isn't flying again anytime soon."

Rex groaned exaggeratedly but slid over to the edge of the Y-Wing as Artoo flew up and out of his spot.

Tezza was in the process of trotting CeCe around the edge of the ring so she could get to the gate of the arena when he startled, leaping forward. She settled him back down and looked back at the ship, just catching sight of a robot flying out of the ship and landing on the ground beside the men.

 _Whoa_. That was new tech she hadn't seen before. Robots were quite common now, doing housework etc., but this was a new design that seemed kind of chunky, but she assumed it had some purpose. And then, a memory from years ago clicked and she gawked at the robot. _That looks like R2-D2 from Star Wars! They must have copied the design and made it work. That is so awesome!_

Tezza rode through the gate, and then jumped off of CeCe, pulling the reins over his head as she led him, his feet reluctantly moving forward. (He wasn't a fan of the armour covered men or the rolling robot, if his snorts were anything to go by.) "Chillax, chickenhead," she muttered to her horse. "They're not going to eat you."

She met the little group of strangers about halfway between the gate and the still smoking ship. One man was helping the injured one walk, their arms slung over each other's shoulders, and a second helmet tucked under his arm that matched the other guy's armour. They were basically covered from head to toe in the white stuff, with only strips of black cloth showing through between the plating. Looking from them, to the robot, to the ship they’d crashed, more memories from her childhood resurfaced and Tezza nearly squealed with excitement. _They’re like a whole cosplay of the Clone Wars show! They look like Cody and Rex and Artoo! This is the coolest thing ever!_

_And they crashed in MY sand ring!_

_Okay. Not my ring. But whatever. Close enough._

She peeked at the man in white and orange, wondering what he looked like under that helmet. Commander Cody always was her favourite, as CeCe’s name would attest. The man playing Rex seemed handsome enough, but with all the blood on the side of his face, and the grimace of pain scrunching it up, it was hard to tell for sure.

Which reminded her that gawking over their costumes wasn’t really a priority right now; taking care of the injured one was.

"Hi," She said with a friendly smile, looking from one man to the other before focusing on the unhelmeted one who had a very military hair cut with only a bit of white blond fuzz covering the top of his head, just like Captain Rex. "Come with me to the barn and we can get you cleaned up," she said, pointing towards the building in question.

Rex shook his head at the woman. "I have no idea what you just said, but a place to sit would sure be nice."

"Oh dear," Tezza said after she listened to the words that sounded like no language she'd ever heard. "That's going to be a problem." _Where in the world are they from? It almost sounds like Latin, but no one actually talks in that language anymore, as far as I know._

So she settled on exaggerated hand gestures, pointing towards the barn and then the injured one's head.

Fortunately, the men nodded, at least seeming to get the point she was trying to make.

So Tezza turned and led the way to the barn, walking slowly so they could keep up with her and CeCe. (Who was still giving them a suspicious eye, but he wasn't trying to run away from them anymore, so that was an improvement.)

Cody, Rex, and Artoo followed the woman into a stable that wasn't that much different from any other animal stable that they'd seen on countless worlds across the galaxy. The only real difference was that these animals were actually quite beautiful instead of butt ugly like most riding animals, and the stable itself was kept meticulously clean. She pointed them to an open door that turned out to be a refresher room, toilets and sinks being more or less recognizable no matter what precise shape they came in.

"You'll find first aid supplies in the cabinet under the sink," Tezza said automatically before remembering they wouldn't get any of it. Sighing, she simply gestured at the space and waited a second to make sure they got the idea, nodding when the injured one settled himself on the closed lid of the toilet. "I'll be right back," she said just before leading CeCe to the crossties to untack him as fast as possible.

Cody looked around the small refresher for a moment, studying the space. Beige painted walls, duracrete floor, white porcelain sink and loo. Cupboards. Pretty standard, all things considered. He put Rex's helmet on the counter beside the sink and then added his own, rubbing a quick hand over his short hair.

Then he dug into his utility belt and held up a couple of stim shots for Rex to see. "You want a pain killer and an anti nausea?"

"Please," Rex groaned. "Shabla, this sucks," he muttered, not quite willing to admit just how much his head hurt. He'd been hurt much worse, of course, but not being able to focus properly was the most annoying injury. He winced as Cody stabbed him in the neck with the stims, and then relaxed as they immediately kicked in, helping his situation drastically. _That’s one thing I’ll never complain about in regards to the Republic army; they know how to keep their soldiers going._

Cody found a roll of soft white towels and tore a couple off. Then he took a second to figure out how the faucet on the sink worked, smiling when it turned on as his hand moved under it. _Efficient_. He liked that. Pulling off his gloves so they didn't get wet, Cody ran the towels under the water and then turned back to Rex. "Kay, vod, let's see what's under all that blood you're leaking."

Rex smirked at his brother. "Hopefully more than just air."

Cody grinned as he started dabbing at the blood slowly dripping down the side of Rex's head. "You're definitely feeling better if you can make a joke."

* * *

Tezza switched CeCe's bridle for a halter, tying him up in the tack up stall, and then undid his girth and pulled his saddle and breastplate off in one minute flat. She hung the tack up on holders on the wall, undid her helmet and hung that up too, and then rushed back to the bathroom.

She found the Artoo lookalike hovering just outside the doorway, watching her. It beeped at her in a curious tone that sounded just like he did in the TV shows and movies, making her smile, and giving her the impression that the robot was possibly smarter than she'd expect. “Someone put a lot of work into you,” she told the silver and blue painted robot as she walked past it and into the bathroom, making the space seem even smaller. (The two large men took up most of it.)

"How's it going in here?" she said conversationally, just because.

The men looked at her with identical smiles, making her blink in surprise as she saw the second man's face for the first time.

 _They’re twins!_ _Or at the very least brothers of a similar age_. Except for the difference in hair colour (the other had dark brown hair cut military short as well), and a wicked scar, that she assumed was painted on, traversing around the darker one's left eye just like Cody’s, they looked nearly identical. They had tan skin over handsome bone structure and lovely golden brown eyes that smiled along with their mouths and both bore a striking resemblance to the clones from the cartoon show. Which meant that they also didn’t look much like the one man who played all of the clones in the movies, but that was okay; the cartoon clones were much more drool-worthy in her opinion.

"Well, aren't you two a couple of tall glasses of water on a hot day," she murmured, smiling back, confident that they didn't understand a word she was saying. (She'd never have had the guts to say it otherwise.) After looking back and forth between the men again, seeing that the blood was now cleaned up from the blond one's head and the wound had stopped bleeding, she found herself focusing on the brunette, eyes drawn to him.

In his armour, he looked massive, and he loomed over her without being intimidating, which she found very exhilarating. The top of her head only came up to his collarbone, which she thought was perfect and would make for a very comfortable hug, so she could rest her cheek on his pec. (She had no doubt he had strong pecs under that armour; he exuded strength and virility.)

Her lips parted on a breath as a mental image of her being held in his arms flooded her mind, sending a tingle of awareness through her. _Holy smokes, that’s new!_ Tezza had never met a man that did that to her that wasn't a fantasy from a movie or something like that.

Now blushing lightly, Tezza looked up at his eyes again and found that he was checking her out every bit as much as she was checking him out. _Holy fire alarm, Batman! Someone throw some water on me, because I’m getting hotter by the moment!_

* * *

Cody focused on the woman, getting his first good look at her now that she wasn't wearing a helmet and he wasn't as worried about Rex. As he'd thought before, she had a young looking round face that was softly feminine. And now he could see that she had a great deal of curly dark gold and bronze hair twisted into a sloppy bun at the back of her neck, and captivating blue eyes with gold flecks around the edges, making them nearly hazel. Her upper body was covered in a loose fitting, short sleeved, royal blue t-shirt, exposing soft looking arms that had a definition of muscle under the tanned skin. The shirt gave him a good idea of the size of her chest, despite the looseness, and he found it quite satisfactory indeed. Her lower body was adorned in some sort of tight fitting faded blue material that hugged her shapely hips and thighs in a mouth-watering fashion, and she was wearing tight black boots that came up to the knee, giving him a fairly good idea about the size of her small feet and her calves as well.

Cody found her utterly captivating and he wanted to pick her up and kiss her, and then see if she was as snugly as she looked, wishing he could wrap his hard body around her soft one.

 _What the frag?!_ Cody gave himself a mental smack, wondering where such thoughts had come from. In all of his thirteen years, he'd never been more than vaguely interested in females, certain that the Kaminoans had genetically engineered him and his brothers so that the urge to mate like most beings experienced was essentially missing.

There were exceptions, of course; Rex being one of them. But thanks to working with Skywalker, Rex was already so far beyond his original conditioning that Cody wasn't surprised at all that he'd learned to love the little togrutan Commander. Not that Rex had ever confessed to such a thing, but Cody had eyes, and he’d often caught Rex gazing after Tano with a look of such longing that it nearly physically hurt to see.

Cody knew his own conditioning was getting sketchier by the year as the war dragged on and he spent more and more time with the impulsive and emotional Generals, but he never would have guessed that he'd so instantly fall for a woman like this.

His eyes met hers and they shared some sort of endless magical acknowledgement of their awareness of each other before she flushed becomingly and looked down at the floor, mumbling more words he didn't know. Cody was determined to fix that as fast as possible, since he had a gift for languages, like many of his brothers.

He wanted to know what she was saying, and his primal instincts were clamouring at him to tell her she was beautiful and ask her if she was perhaps looking for a mate. 

Thank the stars he wasn't ruled by his instincts, right?

* * *

**A/N: Yes, this is a shameless plug for my favourite band, Marianas Trench. Please check them out, they deserve so much more recognition than they get. They're amazing singers with wonderful harmonies and inventive music. If you like Bohemian Rhapsody, try their new song, ‘The Killing Kind’ or the classic ‘Masterpiece Theatre III’. If you like emotional pop ballads, try ‘Who Do You Love’ or ‘Glimmer’. If you like fun rock, try ‘All To Myself’ or ‘Shake Tramp’. And if you like funny music videos, try ‘Celebrity Status’ or ‘Here’s to the Zeros’. Or if you like a beautiful video with a bit of a story inspired by the Goonies, try, ’Astoria.’**

**And if you’re up for a bit of a marathon with an amazing storyline, watch the following videos in this order: ‘Fallout’, ‘Desperate Measures’, ‘Stutter’, ‘Haven’t Had Enough’, and finally the one that explains all the craziness you just watched, ‘By Now’.**

**If you actually read through all that, then actually watched them all as a great way to kill time whilst locked in your house because of the coronavirus, then, YAY!**


	4. Communicating

**A/N: PAC = Personal Air Craft, VIS = Vehicle Identification Signal, HUD = Head's Up Display**

* * *

**Communicating:**

_Federal Department of Air Traffic Control, Canadian West Coast Office._

"Hey, Boss! We've got a couple of pushy NASA transports wanting to cross into B.C.!" a tech yelled across the massive room filled with busy workers, floating computer screens, and roughly a hundred cups of coffee in various stages of warmth and expiration.

The man in question grunted as he frowned at his computer screen, fighting with the headache also known as digital paperwork. "Did they say what for?!" he yelled back with only a little less volume as the room quieted suddenly.

"They say that they tracked a piece of satellite debris falling into our Coastal Mountain area and wish to retrieve it."

Boss frowned harder. "I highly doubt that, but possible, I suppose. Did they give coordinates?"

The tech rattled off a set of coordinates that caught the attention of another tech.

"Hey! I just sent a patrol unit that way! I tracked a PAC with no Canadian VIS landing in that area. I figured it was another American poacher after our game."

Boss scowled. "Something tells me it's not a hunter if NASA wants it. I'm calling the Air Force. They can deal with this. In the meantime, stall the pushy NASA geeks as long as you can and call that patrol unit and tell them something fishy's going on. Tell them to use their discretion, but they might want to hang back for now."

"Yes, Boss."

* * *

_Never Too High Stables_

Rex leaned back against the tank of the toilet, arms crossing over his chest as a grin grew on his face. Watching Cody finally meet a female that caught his attention was very sweet indeed. Rex hadn't liked being the only brother who couldn’t get a female out of his head, and now he saw that might be changing in a hurry, if the look the two were exchanging was anything to go by.

_But Cody didn’t go and very stupidly fall for his Jedi Commander, did he?_

Rex's grin faded as he thought of Ahsoka and realized that he might never see her again. _What will I have to live for if I don’t get to bask in her concerned touches when I’m hurt? Or those long battles where she falls asleep on my shoulder afterwards on the ride back up to the Resolute? What if I never hear her melodious voice again, calling me Rexi?_

_Shab, I miss her already._

_Well, I already missed her, because she wasn’t on Seelos with us, but this is worse. I don’t know where I am and I don’t know if I’m ever getting back._

_Even if we do get our Y-Wing working again, there’s no guarantee the wormhole will still be there when we do. And what if it is and we fly into it only to be spit out somewhere else entirely? Or what if it’s gone and we try to fly home and end up starving to death because home is too far away and we run out of fuel before we get there?_

_Shabla hell, now I’m making myself depressed._

Rex shook it off with determination, focusing on the other two again, his lips twitching back upwards because they were still staring at each other in fascinated wonder.

Leaning forward, he peered around the vanity and found Artoo watching the drama unfold as well. He nodded his chin at the couple with a smirk and an eye roll. The astro chirped out a soft laugh, in complete understanding of what they were witnessing. "Master Kenobi is not going to be impressed," he beeped merrily, clearly looking forward to witnessing such a thing.

Rex laughed. _So am I._

Cody and the young woman never even noticed, and that was even funnier.

* * *

Tezza was utterly captivated by the cosplayer's golden brown eyes. It was like the entire universe lived in their depths and he could see straight into her soul. She couldn't look away. Her entire focus was on them. The rest of the world faded away and it was just her and the handsome, wannabee soldier standing in a blank space in some alternate reality.

It was thrilling.

And terrifying.

In all of her nineteen years she'd never felt like this before. Not even close. _I feel like I’m in a movie; like I’m the heroine falling for the badass, scarred and visibly weary, but still oh so handsome war hero._

The thought was enough to jolt her out of her stunned state.

_What? That’s ridiculous. Love at first sight isn’t really a thing. He’s just really hot, that’s all. I don’t even know what he’s like under that costume. He could be a serial killer or a complete slob or covered in hair like a werewolf or dumber than a box of rocks._

_Get a grip, girl!_

Tezza blinked and tore her gaze from his. She looked down at the floor as she took stock of her racing heart and suddenly sweaty state and scoffed at herself again. _I’ve definitely lost it. Pull yourself together!_

So she did, sucking in a deliberately slow breath.

Twice.

Then, she glanced up at the man who was still gazing at her with curious eyes that looked highly intelligent, belying one of her fears. _Oh, god, stop looking at me like that!_

 _Say something. I should say something._ So, ignoring the fact that he didn't understand English, she mumbled, "I'm sorry, that was rude. I don't know where my head went." As an escape, she knelt and dug out the first aid kit from under the sink and put it on the counter beside their incredibly realistic looking helmets. They’d somehow managed to make their entire armour sets look like they’d gone through a war or ten with scoring, scratches, and dents. _They would definitely win Best Costume at Comic-Con. The one playing Rex even has the weld lines in his mishmashed Phase 1 and 2 armour._

Opening the kit, she pulled out a small tube of NewSkin cream and a bandaid big enough to cover the gash on the sitting soldier's temple that would protect the wound until the cream finished healing it within the next two hours or so. Then she looked at the one who was still watching her with those insides-melting eyes and was about to say 'here, this is for your brother,' when the bemused look on his face recalled to her the lack of verbal communication available. Sighing, she put the items back down and turned on the tap to wash her hands of horse dirt before she touched the injury.

Then she sidled past the Hottest-Male-She'd-Ever-Seen's big body in the miniscule space, holding her breath the whole time. They brushed bodies anyway, and her insides nearly jumped with joy as tingles shot through her from head to toe. _Eeep!_ "I'll just… take care of this, shall I?" she said for the sake of filling in the somewhat awkward silence, tearing her eyes off of Mr. Hotty to look at the other one. Meeting the obviously dyed (brown eyebrows) blond's eyes, she smiled when he gave a little nod of approval for her to doctor him.

* * *

Cody watched the girl take care of his brother with delicate care, putting a cream on his wound and then covering it with a bandage. And the whole time, Rex was talking to him with his eyes, flicking towards the girl with a knowing smirk dancing in them. Cody could practically hear him saying, 'Look, look! You found yourself a GIRL!'

Cody scowled back, crossing his arms over his chest and shook his head minutely to say, 'Don't read too much into it, vod.'

Rex just grinned back and looked extra smug, the bastard.

"Just cause you're hurt doesn't mean I won't wipe the floor with you if you don't remove that look off your face, vod," Cody growled out loud, giving up on getting his point across with nonverbal glaring.

Rex barked out a laugh. "Oh, yeah. That'll make a good impression with your new girlfriend, there."

"She's not my…!"

"She's watching you," Rex cut him off. "And standing right there."

Cody snapped his jaw shut with a clack of teeth and turned his focus back on the girl, an unwitting, bashful smile spreading across his face as he took in her amused raised eyebrow. He shrugged a little and said, "My brothers were unfortunately genetically engineered to be a pain in my shebs." (Mostly for Rex's benefit, since he knew the girl didn't understand Basic or Mando'a.)

Rex snorted, cackling under his breath. "I'm telling everyone you said that when we get back."

"Please do." _I’ll enjoy the extra sparring time._

And then Cody got lost in her brilliant blue and gold eyes again. _Force, they’re pretty. She’s pretty. So pretty._

"Ya know, you could try introductions. That doesn't need a language to get your point across."

Cody almost jumped when Rex said that right in his ear, not even noticing that his brother had stood up and crowded right into his space. Cody felt a little lost for the first time in his life, since he should have figured that out on his own. And he definitely should have sensed Rex moving. _What’s wrong with me?_ "Right. Good idea."

* * *

Tezza turned around after she finished patching up Blondie and immediately encountered Hottie's ferocious scowl. But it wasn't for her, apparently, since he appeared to be having a silent confab with his widely smiling twin. It made her think that twin telepathy really was a thing despite all of the scientific experiments that had attempted to prove otherwise. She wished she could read their minds, because she was dying of curiosity to know what was going on in their heads.

And then they started bickering out loud, and even though she didn't understand the words, the tone was apparent enough to make her smile. She had a pretty good idea that Blondie was teasing Hottie about their mutual gawking session.

Hottie looked at her again, smiling in a way that made her insides turn to butterfly filled jello again, but kept up the banter with his twin for a bit. Tezza was in the process of wondering what Hottie's velvety deep voice would sound like in the midst of an intimate encounter when he cleared his throat pointedly, catching her external focus again.

Tezza fought back a blush at her naughty thoughts as she tilted her head slightly when he put his hand on his chest and very clearly said, "Cody," while looking at her hopefully. Then he touched his brother's shoulder and said, "Rex."

She nearly snorted out loud. _Of course they would go with their cosplay names. People that enmeshed in their rolls would. Fine. We’ll go with that. Trying to get their real names out of them will be too complicated anyway._

And then he touched her shoulder with one of his large and strong looking hands and Tezza’s normal breathing pattern paused for a moment. _Oh, god. He touched me! Look at those long fingers. They can touch me anywhere, anytime._

 _What the hell are you talking about?!_ her conscience screamed at her. _Get a bloody grip! We do not jump strangers! Just tell him your name and get out of this bathroom before we run out of air!_

_But he’s so handsome. And he’s figured out how to break the communication barrier. I want him._

_You’re hopeless._

_Shut up._ _I’m answering him now, and smiling while I do it, whether you like it or not._

Her conscience gave up the brief battle.

* * *

Cody could practically feel her vibrating with… something… when he briefly touched her shoulder ever so lightly and waited in patient silence for her to contribute to the round of names. She looked down at his hand and he could swear he saw her pupils dilate. _Frag. Now I want to touch her some more and see if I was right._

_Bad Cody! Stop lusting after the girl! We’re going home as soon as possible and I refuse to start something I could never finish._

And then the short and pleasingly curved girl beamed brilliantly up at him, transforming her features from very pretty to simply stunning. Cody’s heart and brain basically short circuited. And then her sweet and soothing voice said, "Tezza. My name is Tezza. And you're Cody." She glanced to his right and continued with, "And he's Rex."

Cody felt himself returning her wide smile. "Tezza," he repeated, just to double check that he’d signaled out the correct word from the many that she’d spoken. It was a pretty name, just like her. He liked it, even as the dutiful part of him whispered that it shouldn't matter one way or the other.

She nodded quickly in affirmation while saying, "Yes."

Cody quickly grasped onto something that should be easy to interpret. He repeated her motion and said, "Yes?"

Tezza blinked at the question mark at the end of his yes, taking a couple of seconds to realize that he was asking if yes meant yes. _Is he trying to learn English? Because if that’s the case, I’m more than willing to help him. In whatever way he wants._

 _Slut,_ her conscience whispered.

_I thought I told you to shut up._

She nodded again and very clearly said, "Yes." Then she shook her head and said, "No." Nodded. "Yes." Shook. "No."

Cody grunted in approval that she'd caught on quickly. _Maybe she’s just as smart as she is pretty. That would be good._ And that made something inside him take even that much more notice of her. That something had paws and prowled the night and growled possessively as it stalked inside him like a predator as it circled its intended mate with clear intent. Cody banished the disturbing mental image as he repeated her words, feeling out the unfamiliar sounds and committing them to memory.

Rex was practically falling over himself in the effort not to burst into laughter. _Stars, they’re so funny, staring at each other like a simple bit of clever translation is the hottest thing ever._ "Great, Cody, you've established a real basis for communication, there," he teased. "I can just see you two out on your first date now; being all, yes, no, yes, no."

Cody swiveled his head and glared at his brother. "Will you give it up already? I'm not here to go on dates. We have to work with the people of this planet if there's even a chance of our ever getting home. Or don't you want to see your not so secret crush again?"

Rex gulped and sobered quickly, an image of Ahsoka's very worried beautiful sky blue eyes flashing into his mind. _How the kriff does he know about that?_ "Sorry. And you know I do. I don’t know how you figured out that Ahsoka's my everything, but you’re right."

"Of course I’m right. I’m always right." Cody smirked for a moment before sobering as he saw the utter misery hidden in the depths of his brother’s eyes and he realized that Rex had just been trying to distract himself from the reality of their situation with some simple teasing. He grasped Rex's shoulder tightly on the side not covered by the flared blue pauldron. "I’m sorry, vod. I vow that I'm going to do whatever is necessary to return you to her."

Rex grabbed Cody's shoulder in return and smiled wanly. "I know you will. That's why you're the Commander; you have never thought of yourself first. But maybe, this time, you could perhaps spare a moment or two and just appreciate the gift the Force has put in front of you?"

Cody flicked his eyes to the girl who was once again watching them with patient curiosity before he sighed heavily as he turned his gaze back to Rex's. "We'll see."

Rex's face split into a real smile again. "I'm calling that a yes."

Cody just rolled his eyes and let go of his brother, returning his focus to the girl and giving her an apologetic smile. He wished she knew Basic so he could tell her how sorry he was for Rex's uncouth interruptions.

Tezza basically got the idea anyway. She could tell that the brothers were teasing, but also worried. _Who wouldn't be after crashing their Y-Wing lookalike in a place where they didn't know the language?_

Deciding that they'd been smushed into the small space that was never meant for three long enough, Tezza waved her hand towards the door and said, "Come on." And then she walked out, past the curious robot.

Cody and Rex got the idea, grabbing up their helmets and gloves and following the girl as she walked down the wide hallway of the tidy barn. Some sort of upbeat music filled the silence rather enthusiastically and a couple of tooka-like creatures, one a sleek black and white, and the other a fluffy bright orange, wound around their feet with curious trills.

"Friendly critters," Rex mumbled as he shuffled his step to avoid stepping on the black one.

Tezza paused and looked over her shoulder, smiling at the sight of the curious cats greeting the men who had a robot following them like a faithful dog. She knelt down and held out her hands until the cats walked under them to stroke their backs. "Domino," she said to the men, indicating the black and white male, and then, "Tangy," she added, smiling at the orange female cat.

The men copied her gesture and words, smiling as they petted the cats for a few seconds, ‘Rex’ pulling off his gloves too so he could feel the soft fur. She beamed at them, pleased as could be that they got on well with animals, because it was rather important to her that at least ‘Cody’ did. _I guess calling him Cody is better than calling him Hottie. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing if I said it out loud once he knew what the word meant?_

She stood again and continued to where she'd left CeCe cross tied in the tack up stall, the armoured men following her. She rubbed her horse's face, following the white stripe that ran the length of his head from between the eyes to the top of his muzzle. Her horse nuzzled into her hand, looking for cookies, as she looked at the men. "CeCe. This is CeCe." _I bet they’d think it was hilarious if they knew I named him after Cody._

“CeCe,” Cody repeated obediently as he admired the big reddish brown animal that had a shiny coat of short fur and black hair running down its neck and in a tail at the back end. "Handsome beast," he commented to Rex.

Rex nodded. "Sure beats some of the butt ugly riding animals we've been stuck planting our shebs on."

Cody laughed. “For sure. They lucked out on this planet. I wonder if they have vehicles or if they only ride beasts? How advanced do you think their tech is?”

Rex nodded to Tezza’s arm as she picked up a rubber brush to scrub off the already dry sweat marks from the saddle and girth area. “That looks like a wrist computer to me. It’s just not attached to a vambrace like we’re used to seeing.”

“I think you’re right. Maybe the animals are for pleasure rather than necessity. This one does seem to be quite pampered.”

They watched as the girl gave the animal a treat from a bin full of them attached to the wall and Rex chuckled. “Definitely pampered.”

When the men stopped commenting about who knew what in their language and silence reigned for a minute, Tezza waved her rubber curry around, using it as a pointer for the them, figuring their language lesson could continue. She pointed at herself and said, "Human," then pointed at each of the men and repeated it. Then she pointed at CeCe and said, "Horse." Then she pointed at the felines that were now circling the robot with cautious curiosity. "Cat." Then she went back to work brushing her horse, while keeping an eye on the men to see if they were as smart as they looked.

Cody followed her pointing and words. It only took him a couple of seconds to figure it out. He pressed his hand to his chestplate and grinned. "Cody human." Pointed at Rex. "Rex human." Pointed at the girl grooming her animal. "Tezza human. CeCe horse. Domino cat. Tangy cat."

Tezza gave him another brilliant smile filled with even white teeth that practically made his head swim. "Yes."

Cody gave Rex a smug smirk, feeling like he'd just passed the hardest training test at Kamino. "Did you get that, vod?"

Rex snorted, rolling his eyes. "Of course. What do you take me for? A just hatched shiny?"

Cody returned his snort. Then he called for Artoo to roll a little closer, making the horse blow out a loud huff via its nostrils and bug its big brown eyes out slightly.

"Easy, stupid," Tezza said reassuringly and pushed him back as he shifted unthinkingly towards her with his big hooves. "You've seen the robot before."

Cody touched the astromech's dome and clearly said, "Artoo," and then looked at the girl expectantly.

"R2," Tezza repeated, not even remotely surprised at the name they gave their robot. She received a whistle and a beep from the droid that she took for a hello. Which, of course, made CeCe snort again, backing as far away from the robot as he could within the confines of his ties. Shaking her head at her chicken of a horse, Tezza then looked at Cody and Artoo. "Artoo robot."

"Robot," Cody repeated, nodding to himself.

“Or droid,” she added, with a thoughtful look. “I think robots were called droids in the Star Wars universe.

Cody just looked at her with confusion, too many new words for him to follow any of it.

Sighing, she started to try explaining better when the robot swivelled his dome suddenly and beeped out, "There are two more organics coming this way, and they appear to be sneaking, based on their rate of pace."

“What did it say?” Tezza asked curiously, before realizing that the men wouldn’t be able to answer her, and that they’d both suddenly tensed and started moving in a near blur.

“Wait! What’s happening?!” she called after them as they dashed down the hallway and towards the front door.


	5. Protectiveness

**Protectiveness:**

_Kwymar Sector…_

The trip from Kestos Minor to the wormhole took less time than any of them were expecting, even with Captain Typho pushing the engines to their limit, but the twenty minute trip still felt like an eternity to Ahsoka.

She spent the time alternating between literally vibrating in her chair with impatience and reminding herself that she was a Jedi and that she was supposed to be calm and in control at all times. The still moments were decidedly less frequent than the impatient ones.

Ahsoka had only one real thought on her mind, and that was to get her Rex back, no matter the cost. She barely acknowledged Padmè when she tried to reassure her that everything would work out, only sending her friend the briefest of grateful smiles for the support before her mind went back into planning mode.

Of course, it was the same plan, over and over, because there really was only option available to her as far as Ahsoka was concerned.

She had to follow Rex into the wormhole and hope she came out the other side in the same place and time as he had.

Wormholes weren't very common, and not a whole lot of scientific study had been done on them because of how dangerous they usually were, but what she did know was that a newly born wormhole could be very quirky in regards to where and when they appeared. The longer a wormhole stayed in the same place, the more dependable it became. There was one in the Mid Rim that had been around for thousands of years, and if you really wanted to save time and were feeling a little suicidal, you could almost safely use it to travel to the other side of the Mid Rim in only minutes instead of using the hyperlanes across the core, which took more than a day. Ninety percent of the ships that had been known to attempt the wormhole had successfully come out the other side. The rest had been spit out in pieces.

Even with those odds, it was a very rare few who dared to tempt fate so.

Not even Anakin had been willing to try it, and that was saying something. He said he had too much to live for to risk doing something quite that stupid. She, Obi-Wan, and Rex had all been relieved to know that he actually did have a line he wasn't willing to cross.

Ahsoka was going to cross that line now, whether he liked it or not. The only tricky part was going to be getting herself onto a ship that stood more than half a chance. _It's too bad I can't borrow Padmè's ship. This thing is about as sturdily built as a ship can get. But that just wouldn't be fair to her. This is the fourth ship she's purchased in two years, thanks to bad luck and Jar Jar. Her family is rich, but not that rich. And the Nubian taxpayers had a fit when they found out that somebody had accidentally charged ships number two and three to the senatorial expense account._

_So… yeah. Not taking Padmè's ship. But I'm definitely going to have to appropriate something._

Her thoughts and anxieties were derailed when everyone else in the cockpit gasped. The Togrutan girl looked up to see that the wormhole was now in sight. The swirling entrance was massive, at least as big as a planet, and somehow visible against the deep black of space; possibly because it was a little bit less black. Whatever it was, the Force felt like it was yelling at her through a megaphone as she focused on it, which made her snap her connection to the Force closed again with a shudder. _Definitely not_ _doing that again._

Hovering a respectable distance from the hole was the rest of Anakin's fleet, and flying towards it, a few straggling escape pods were still making for the safety of the Venators.

"Kriff," Typho breathed, slowing the yacht down to the equivalent of a crawl.

"I'm afraid I don't see anything abnormal," Threepio side apologetically. "My photoreceptor's were not designed to register different shades of black. Is it bad?"

"Oh yeah," Padmè's head of security said.

The girls were all silent, too busy being awed to speak or respond.

For a few seconds, anyway. And then Padmè broke the silence by turning around and looking at Ahsoka pleadingly. "Can you… tell where Anakin is now?"

Ahsoka immediately felt like a selfish nerf for not thinking about anyone but Rex. _Of course Padmè would be worried about Anakin. I should be worried about Anakin. And Obi-Wan. What's wrong with me?_

After giving herself a mental slap, she nodded to the senator once and closed her eyes so she could concentrate on her bond with her Master. She opened her eyes a few seconds later, a grim smile on her lips and her gaze already connected to the appropriate escape pod that was just descending into the hangar of one of the Venators. "He's in the pod disappearing into the second ship from the left, and he's fine. He's even taken over the piloting of the pod."

Padmè and her retinue smiled in relief. "Thank you. Make for that Venator, Captain, if you don't mind."

"With pleasure, My Lady."

* * *

_Earth…_

The patrol unit made a sweep over the area around the coordinates given. It didn't take long for them to find the crashed, yellow painted, and still smoking PAC in the ruined jumping ring of Never Too High Stables. There was a herd of horses nearby, some grazing on the spring grass, but most were still lined up at the fenceline, gazing at the wreckage curiously.

"Ooooo, someone is not going to be happy about that," the younger officer said.

His partner snorted in agreement as he flew the armoured patrol vehicle around for another look. "I don't see anyone in the wreck. Probably took refuge in the barn over yonder. Doesn't look much like a hunter's vehicle though."

"Traffic control did say that NASA was interested in it. I can see why. I think it looks more like a starfighter from an old cartoon I saw as I kid than anything else. Maybe someone's been doing some illegal spaceship testing and it didn't go the way they hoped."

"Could be. I'm going to land in stealth mode, just to be safe. And then we'll approach the barn quietly and assess the situation before we engage with our astronaut wannabees."

The younger officer raised a brow at what he considered to be an excess of caution, but just shrugged. "You're the boss."

* * *

At the warning from Artoo, Cody and Rex were instantly on alert. They slipped their armorweave gloves back on and jammed their helmets on their heads, switching to their HUDs, which gave them infrared vision, allowing them to essentially see through walls.

"Hostiles confirmed," Cody said via their helmet comms, seeing two human shaped reddish blobs sidling along the front of the building on either side of the big doorway as they quietly sprinted that way with Artoo following on Rex's heels. He heard Tezza say something behind him, but not knowing her language, he ignored her and followed his natural instinct to protect against people acting in a suspicious fashion.

Tezza watched in alarm with what had to be a stunned fish look as the men turned into real looking soldiers in front of her eyes. With efficient movements they jog-stalked down the hallway towards the door, palming guns she had just assumed were toys, being way more intrigued with their faces than the paraphernalia on their belts. Their booted feet were soundless where before they had made normal footfall sounds.

She was understandably stunned.

She tossed down the rubber curry in the general direction of the brush box and dashed after Cody. "What are you doing?" she hissed, as soon as she caught up about three quarters of the way to the front door.

Cody waved an authoritative hand at her that even as a civilian she recognized as a 'stay put' signal.

Not one to be so easily dissuaded, Tezza ignored the command, staying right behind him as he ran. At least, until Cody whirled around and grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her into an empty stall and very clearly indicated she should stay put or else. She thought that was a rather good trick, considering his face was covered by a helmet and he didn't say a word.

Biting her lip with worry that the cosplayer / soldiers had lost it and were about to attack the horses or something, she peeked around the door of the stall and watched the armour clad men move in sync to the doorway and then in tandem leap forward and each turn in different directions with their guns raised.

As blue beams emerged from the muzzles of the unfamiliar looking guns, Tezza heard someone call out, "Stop, Police!" That was immediately followed by the sound of gunshots and falling bodies as apparently the police shot at the same time that they spoke and then immediately succumbed to the blue beams.

Heart somewhere up near her tonsils, Tezza tried to gulp it back down as she ran down the hallway towards the door filled with doom. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" she yelled at the men who had seemed so harmless not even a minute ago, once again ignoring the fact that they didn't understand English. They turned to look at her, their emotionless visors giving her no indication of their thoughts.

Tezza skidded through the doorway and looked both ways to see two blue uniformed policemen lying on the ground. She gasped in dismay and alarm. "You can't just shoot whoever comes along!" she yelled at Cody, waving her hands helplessly. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you're going to be in? I hope you didn't kill them. Please tell me you didn't kill them?"

Cody blinked at the outraged woman. "I'm getting the impression she's not pleased with our protection," Cody said via helmet comm to Rex.

"Ya think?" he scoffed back.

* * *

"Absolutely not!" Anakin shouted loud enough to catch the attention of every person in the very large and very crowded hangar.

Master and Padawan ignored the curious looks as Ahsoka growled, the tips of her sharp canine teeth making a rare appearance, and took a step forward into his personal space, looking up into Anakin's glowering visage. "I wasn't asking you, Master. I was telling you. I'm going into that wormhole and I'm bringing Rex back!"

"Over my dead body! It's way too dangerous! I know you and Rex are very good friends, and he's my friend too, practically family, but I'm not going to let you go on a suicide mission for him!"

"You can't stop me!"

"Like hell I can't! You take one step towards a ship and I'm going to knock you out and tie you up!"

Obi-Wan, Fives, Padmè, Typho, Dormè, and Threepio's heads swivelled back and forth as they watched the familiar sight of the two stubborn minded Jedi clash over another opinion. It wasn't even close to the first time that one had tried to talk the other out of doing something exceptionally stupid.

"Ten credits says they both go," Fives whispered to General Kenobi.

"And ten says neither go," Obi-Wan whispered back.

"You're on."

Neither even bothered to think that Ahsoka would actually manage to leave on her own. Aside from the fact that now literally everyone knew what she wanted to do and would all be compelled to stop her, Anakin really would go through with his threat if he thought it necessary.

The two young Jedi glared at each other for a solid minute, both trying to outstubborn the other, until Ahsoka broke and tears welled in her big baby blue eyes. Her lips trembled as she held back a sob. _But... Rex..._

Sensing that she wasn't faking the sorrow, Anakin immediately pulled her stiff body into a tight hug, curling around her much smaller form protectively, his cheek resting against the striped skin of her montral. "I'm sorry, Snips," he murmured softly. "I'll miss him too. But I can't let you die for him. He wouldn't want you to, and you know that."

Ahsoka buried her face in the shoulder of his black leather tabard, hands clenching in the thick, synthetic material as she made a valiant effort at not breaking down into a bawling mass of uselessness. "You're right. I do know that," she whispered and then sniffed back more tears. "But I believe with my entire being that I wouldn't be dying. I believe that I'm supposed to go get him and Cody. I can't not try." She sniffed again and said through their bond, so that only Anakin could possibly hear her, _"He's my mate, Anakin."_

The young man, who was as close to an older brother to her as he could get without actually being of the same blood, stiffened, his breath catching. He pulled back just far enough so that he could see her eyes. Ahsoka looked up and their gazes locked. _"Ahsoka…"_

 _"_ _He doesn't know. And I haven't acted on it yet, I promise. But I know that you, of all people, would understand how much I have to do this. If it were Padmè on the other side of the wormhole, I know you would go get her without even thinking about it."_

Anakin sighed, and closed his eyes momentarily as he fought with his Jedi side and the part of him that would do anything for his soulmate, his true love, his everything. The side that lived and breathed for Padmè won quickly. _"Ahsoka… You said yet. What did you mean by that?"_

A hint of a smile formed on the corner of her mouth and her cheeks heated. _"I mean that I'm tired of denying my nature. Everything in me screams for me to claim Rex as my own. I know Humans don't have quite the same urges as a Togrutan, but surely you must have succumbed to something similar to defy the Code the way you do?"_

His own mouth twitched up into a reluctant smile. _"You could say that. How long have you known about Padmè and I, anyway?"_

Her smile grew. _"Since the first time I saw you two together. You throw off a lot of possessive pheromones whenever you're in her presence that any Togrutan would be able to sense without even trying. And I can literally hear her heartbeat speed up whenever she's with you or talks about you. It's very cute."_

Now Anakin was gawking at his Padawan, having just learnt something new about her that he'd never even thought to ask about. He did know that she had phenomenal hearing, due to the echoing abilities of her montrals, but it had never occurred to him that she could actually hear heartbeats, or sense pheromones, for that matter. _But if Ahsoka can do that, then so can Master Ti! "Ummmm, Snips, I have to ask, would Master Ti also be able to sense all of that?"_

Ahsoka sent him a mental snort, now full on grinning. _"Of course. And so can many other members of the Council, like Masters Fisto and Tiin. But even the ones that aren't quite as skilled at reading body signals can feel the way the Force dances between you two. And barring that, you only need eyes to see that you love each other, as a few legions worth of clones can attest. Practically everyone we know knows that you and Padmè are together. They've simply chosen not to call you on it because of who you are."_

Anakin blinked a couple of times, about as close to floored as he could get without actually falling on it. _"Well, kark."_

Ahsoka patted the cheek of his shocked looking face a couple times. _"Yep. But you can tell me what you decide to do about that later. First, I'm going to get my mate back from wherever he ended up."_

Obi-Wan watched his charges have a ten second mental discussion, able to sense that they were talking to each other, but he hadn't been invited into the loop of their bond this time, so he could only guess as to what was being said by their feelings and their facial expressions. "Kriff," he muttered as he sensed the tide changing. He dug into a pouch on his belt and handed Fives a small fistful of gold credit bars.

Fives raised a brow in question just as Ahsoka pulled away from Anakin and started heading for one of the shuttles parked along the wall.

Anakin startled from his shock and called, "Not without me, you're not! I refuse to let you do this alone!"

Ahsoka paused and turned around, beaming a wide smile at her Master. "If you insist."

"I do, and I'm bloody well flying," he said as he quickly caught up to her.

"Of course you are."

Padmè stared after her retreating husband with wide eyes and then looked over at Obi-Wan. "What just happened?"

The Jedi Master shrugged and shook his head in resignation. "They're off to do something incredibly reckless again, of course. What else?"

A very determined look crossed the senator's beautiful face. "Not without me, they're not. If Anakin is going to get himself stuck somewhere else, then he's kriffing well taking me with him this time. I'm tired of sitting at home, wondering if he'll ever come back to me."

While the small group of people within hearing distance of that gawked at her for more or less admitting to their illicit relationship, Padmè dashed after her husband. "Anakin!"

He turned around when he was only two steps away from the ramp of a shuttle. He was already wincing, knowing that 'I am not pleased with you' tone. "Yes, Senator Amidala?"

Ahsoka snickered under her breath.

Anakin elbowed her in the side to shut his snippy Padawan up.

Padmè closed the distance between them with quick and determined strides, her purple dress swirling around her ankles. "Don't Senator Amidala me, Anakin Skywalker. You were just going to leave without saying goodbye to anyone?" The 'like me' was left unsaid, but it hung on the air anyway.

"Ummmm." He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Yes?"

Padmè huffed in exasperation, planting her hands on her hips. "We'll be talking about that later, you can bet on that. But time is probably short, so we'll skip all that for now." She pointed at her sleekly gleaming arrow shaped ship. "If you're going back into that wormhole, you're taking the Sky Angel or nothing, do you hear me?"

Anakin raised a brow at the fourth identical ship to hold that title. It was admittedly the best ship for the mission, being very well built and having literally the best shields money could buy. (But was still somehow not Jar Jar proof.) "If you insist."

"I do."

He walked up to his wife and looked down at her, letting his eyes show her how much he loved her. "Thank you," he said softly. "I promise to do my best not to wreck this one." _And come back to you._

She laughed softly. "Don't make any promises you can't keep."

"Hey!"

Padmè flicked her eyes at her ship. "Aren't you wasting precious time?"

Anakin exhaled loudly, wishing that for once in his life, he could say a proper goodbye to his wife in public, but even if everyone did know, or at least suspect that they were together, he still wasn't about to flaunt it to the galaxy until Padmè said they could or the war ended so he could ditch the Order with a clear conscience, whichever came first. "Fine. But I'm bringing myself and Ahsoka and Rex and Cody and the Sky Angel back in one piece, got that?"

Padmè just smiled. "Got it. But since I'm coming along with you, you don't have to worry so much about bringing the ship back to me."

His eyes nearly popped out of his head. "You're WHAT?"

"Coming with you," Padmè said blithely, already turning and walking towards her ship with swift strides that sent her skirt flaring behind her again. She wasn't surprised when Ahsoka appeared beside her and shot her a wide grin of approval.

Anakin stood frozen, watching his wife and Padawan walk away from him for all of two seconds before he unfroze himself and almost literally leaped after them. "Like hell you are!"

Padmè shot him a chiding look as he appeared on her other side, walking backwards so that he could glare at her. She didn't stop her forward momentum. "Don't you dare take that tone with me. I am not staying behind if it means there's a possibility that I'll never see you again. I know just as well as the next person how unpredictable wormholes can be. If it closes before you can come back through it, then I'm going to be on the other side of it with you, and that's final."

Anakin opened his mouth, snapped it shut, and then repeated the process twice more before he gave up on trying to come up with a good counterargument to that. "All right," he admitted just as the heel of his right boot touched the bottom of the ramp of the Sky Angel.

Padmè gave him one of her beautiful smiles that he never failed to turn into a puddle of goo over and walked past him and up the ramp, with Ahsoka at her side. The girl gave him an equally beautiful smile that just made Anakin want to roll his eyes.

 _Force, I'm a sucker to the females in my life,_ he thought as his shoulders slumped slightly while he watched the girls walk up the ramp triumphantly.

And then he nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand clapped him on the shoulder. "Usually I envy the hell out of you, Sir. But today... not so much."

Anakin looked over at the one who'd touched him, seeing the commiserating smile and the twinkling brown eyes. He hadn't even registered the ARC trooper as being in his vicinity due to his preoccupied state, which freaked him out just a little bit. "I think I agree with you, Fives. I have no idea what I've gotten myself into sometimes, and right now is one of those times."

The clone laughed once and then sobered. "On behalf of all of my brothers, I just want to wish you luck. I know it's a dangerous mission, but we all appreciate that you're going after Rex and Cody. I hope the little Commander's fervent belief that they're still alive is right."

Anakin smiled tightly at the clone who'd proved his loyalty to the Republic and his unit countless times, but even more so to Rex, and that meant a lot to the Jedi. "I hope she's right, too. If it's any consolation, I'm not getting a bad feeling about this from the Force, so there's hope still."

Fives nodded. "Thank you, Sir."

He nodded back and then jumped up the ramp in two easy bounds and then closed it behind him. He walked into the cockpit and blinked at the group of people all strapped into chairs and waiting for him. His gaze flicked over Threepio, Dormè, and Typho, not surprised that they'd elected to come along, since they were basically Padmè's family and were incredibly hard to shake, even on a good day, and landed on the Jedi Master dressed in light beige and sporting a head full of copper hair. "What are you doing, Obi-Wan?"

The older Jedi raised a single brow and smirked. "Coming with you, as you can plainly see. The lovely senator isn't the only one with a claim on you, you know."

Anakin only sighed yet again and took his seat in the pilot's chair and started flicking switches. "Fine. But if the whole lot of us don't make it back to Coruscant in the next decade or so, then you're the one who's going to explain to the Council why they were left to flounder through the rest of the war on their own. And you have to promise to record whatever epic scolding the Duchess is going to give you when you reappear in her life after an extended leave of absence for a second time."

"Agreed."

All of the females snickered.

* * *

Tezza growled at the silent men who just stared at her via their helmets, presenting a united front as they stood side by side. Then she spun on the ball of her foot and went to check on the policeman to the right of the door. She knelt beside him and breathed a sigh of relief to see his chest rising and falling steadily and no visible wounds. She had no idea what the blue beams did, but maybe it was kind of like a stun from a phaser like on those old Star Trek shows. _Star Wars had a stun option, too, I think._ She hadn't known that anyone had actually invented that tech yet, but it didn't really surprise her, considering how many other inventions had been inspired by old movies and shows.

Tezza checked the other officer and was relieved to find him also just unconscious and not dead. Despite this, righteous anger filled her, possibly making her a little reckless, but she stomped back to Cody anyway as if he was still the harmless man she'd first assumed him to be. Then she planted her hands on her hips and glared at him for a good half minute as she worked out how to explain that he had done something bad.

Cody knew they'd messed up already, but her next actions and words really confirmed it. The tiny woman poked at the blaster still in his hand and basically yelled, "No!" at him. "No guns! No shoot human. No shoot horse. No shoot cat. Just NO! Got it?" He only understood half of the words she said, but he could fill in the blanks based on context and added them to his slowly growing list of her words.

Rex started cracking up over the comm, laughing with annoying chuckles, stunted inhales, and snorts. (All while his body was perfectly still, having mastered the art during a few hundred too many briefings with the Jedi Generals.) Cody shot him a helmeted glare that his brother was perfectly happy to ignore, his chuckles not waning at all, so Cody chose to ignore him and focused on the girl again.

Seeing the betrayed look on Tezza's face, the Commander of thousands of his own clone brothers holstered his blaster and reached up to pull his helmet off, which had the added benefit of turning off Rex's annoying laughter. He was prepared to apologize as best as he could to the irate woman. Apparently they shouldn't have shot the men who wore matching uniforms and were probably some sort of police force, now that he had more than half a second to look at them. But he hadn't known that in the heat of the moment, and they had been sneaking in a very suspicious fashion. He supposed it was logical for some sort of authority to investigate their crash, but he hadn't expected such a fast response time and really hadn't been thinking that far ahead anyway, considering the chest high distraction currently tapping her booted foot at him like a pissed off mother scolding a naughty child.

Honestly, he found her just as amusing as Rex did, but he'd never admit it. In fact, he found her so magnificent in her fury that he wanted to kiss the rage right out of her until it transformed into a much more pleasant form of passion.

"I'm sorry," he said, conveying his regret as best as he could with his expression.

Tezza sighed, because even though she didn't know the words, the tone was enough. Her hands dropped to her sides and she shook her head at him in a mild form of exasperation. "You're sorry."

Cody nodded quickly, adding more words to his vocabulary based on context. "Yes. Sorry. Cody Sorry."

Tezza blinked in surprise at the English words. _Whoa. Someone's even smarter than he looks._ And then he patted his chestplate, his helmet, and his gun and said something else starting with his name. She had a feeling she knew what he was getting at even if she wasn't sure she liked it. He and his twin had reacted too well to the officers showing up. They were too in sync, too smooth, too practiced, to not be exactly what they looked like in real life, even if their Star Wars costumes almost probably weren't what they normally wore. "Cody soldier," she supplied, touching his armoured chest and then his gun and helmet the same way he had.

Cody beamed, so relieved that she got the idea. "Yes, Cody soldier. Rex soldier." He gently pulled her behind him and mimed shooting the officer again with just his hand, then he turned around, hoping that she understood this as well. "I am a soldier. It is my job to protect you. Do you see?"

Tezza nodded, only understanding one of the words he'd said, but his actions spoke louder than words. "Cody soldier. Cody protect Tezza. That's all you were doing wasn't it?"

He smiled, creating adorable dimples in his cheeks that made her want to swoon like a woman from hundreds of years ago.

"Yes. Cody protect Tezza," he said firmly, his free hand reaching up all by itself and brushing a long lock of dark gold hair behind her ear that had fallen over her eye at some point. His gloved fingers lingered on her cheek in a gentle caress. _Cody wishes he could always protect Tezza._

_If only she was actually mine to protect forever._

_But she can't be. I'm going home. Somehow. And I doubt she'd want to leave her life here and come with me._

He forced his hand to return to his side.


	6. Magnets

**A/N: As I watched the newest episode of the Clone Wars, I nearly choked to death when I heard that Trace’s ship is called the Silver Angel. I named Padmè’s ship in the last chapter, before that episode aired, but I feel like the cosmos are laughing at me now for my name choice. (Sigh) It made sense to me, and I like it, so I’m sticking with Sky Angel, but you’re not allowed to laugh at me too, just saying. :P**

**Also, who else is bouncing up and down at the news (rumours?) that Ahsoka is going to be in season 2 of the Mandalorian?**

* * *

**Magnets:**

_Earth…_

Tezza’s breath caught, and her eyelids fluttered for a moment as she leaned into Cody’s touch. It didn’t seem to matter to her hormones that he’d just taken down a police officer. Or that he was a literal stranger that she knew absolutely nothing about other than that he was more than likely a real soldier who had a thing for Star Wars and was nice to animals. And… he wanted to protect her from unknown baddies. _That is so fricking hot._

All she wanted was to throw herself into his arms and beg him to kiss her until she lost her breath and her brain turned to mush.

It was the strangest feeling to have to fight against. Because, no matter what her hormones were clamouring for, she wasn’t a slut, and refused to turn into one. _But, dear god, if I’m around him much longer and find even one more desirable trait in him, I’m going to lose the fight and jump him, I swear._

And then his hand dropped and the internal debate sizzled out, even as her hormones whimpered at the loss of his brief caress.

She looked into his eyes and saw the apology there, but for what, she wasn’t sure. Her best guess, though, was that it was for touching her in such an intimate way without any real permission from her. She tried to explain with her own gaze that she didn’t mind. Not really.

But that only made his golden brown eyes even more sorrowful, which made her own heart hurt a little. _Maybe… Maybe he didn’t mean to touch me. Maybe he knows there can never be anything between us. Maybe he knows he’ll be leaving as soon as the authorities haul him away for… things._

She inhaled slowly through her nose, resignation filling her. She spoke out loud, because the silence was killing her. “Right. There’s nothing I can do for those poor officers that you made go beddy-bye until they wake up, so I might as well finish putting CeCe away. You can follow or not. I don’t care.”

And with that, she spun on her heel and walked back into the barn. On the way towards her patiently waiting horse, she did what she should have done right off the bat and sent a 911 text to the police regarding a crashed PAC / starfighter thing in the sand ring of Never Too High Stables. She also added that there had been two officers who had already responded to the situation, but, due to some communication barriers with the non English speaking pilots of the PAC, the officers were now unconscious. She finished her text by stating that she didn’t think the pilots were dangerous, but any further officers responding to the situation should approach carefully but not furtively.

Now standing by CeCe’s curious head, she hit send on her wrist comp and received a spinning circle that indicating her message was stuck in transit. She watched the circle for a moment, eyebrows rising as the message continued to live in limbo for a bit and then finally sent. And then she remembered the D.J.’s words. _Right… Some of the satellites were damaged by the wormhole thing. Sketchy internet and cell service._

She glanced at the men who had followed her into the barn, both of them unhelmeted again and looking at her just as curiously as her horse was as all of them watched her play with her wrist comp like it was the most fascinating thing they’d ever seen. The horse was understandable; the relatively stupid animal had always been intrigued by the beeping sounds her computer made with each letter she typed into the screen. But the men; you’d think they’d never seen a wrist computer before, which was absolutely ridiculous, considering they had similar, if unfamiliar, models on their vambraces.

_Holy shit! I’m so stupid! The computers! Why didn’t I think of that before?_

Giving herself a mental face palm for a millisecond, and then with flying fingers, Tezza asked her comp to search for other computer signals in a five metre radius.

Not surprisingly, it found some. Five, to be exact. She was surprised at that, until she realized that their helmets must have sophisticated technology in them as well. Which made sense, considering the visors actually only allowed for a limited amount of real visibility and they'd put them on to track down the cops.

Smiling in triumph, she pulled up a translation program from the internet, which, thankfully was working again, and asked for Mando'a and for it to show up in Aurebesh. She might not know what exactly their native language was, but if they were such big Star Wars fans that they were willing to dress up like that, then it was a solid bet that they would also be nerdy enough to know the Mandalorian language that the clones spoke and the Star Wars alphabet that someone had invented long ago and was now used worldwide as a way for Star Wars nerds to communicate with each other ‘secretly’.

Grinning to herself, Tezza typed into the program, **Hi! As you know, my name is Tezza and I’m only a little slow on the uptake today, lol.** Then she told her comp to connect and link the five computers in her vicinity and send the words now translated into Aurebesh to them.

Then she watched the men eagerly, nearly bouncing on her toes as she waited for their reactions.

The robot received the message first, his dome spinning a bit as he looked at her in what could only be called surprise, despite the lack of face. And then a string of Aurebesh appeared on her computer a moment latter, which the translation program very helpfully translated to English for her in only moments. **Hi, Tezza! Most call me R2 and I think you are fairly clever for a human. Also, Commander Cody’s programming is on the fritz because of you. It is most entertaining.**

She giggled. _Trust a robot to think of emotional reactions as programming. And wow, are they ever enmeshed in their roles if the robot automatically refers to Cody as Cody and not whatever his real name is._ **Thank you,** she typed back. **And I’m enjoying his fritzing programming too, to be honest.**

Then she looked back up at Cody’s face and did a little mental happy dance at how flabbergasted he looked. Rex too, for that matter, but her eyes quickly returned to Cody’s face, drawn to him like a magnet connected their souls or something.

* * *

Cody glanced at the policeman that he’d stunned accidentally on purpose and then shrugged before following Tezza into the barn. _I’ll apologize when he wakes up._

_Somehow._

Rex fell into step beside him and pulled off his helmet. They exchanged glances that basically said ‘now what?’ and ‘who knows’, and then Cody returned his focus to the girl who’d taken over his every thought within only minutes of meeting her.

He couldn’t help that his eyes landed on her luscious rear end and stayed there, watching the gentle sway of her hips in her formfitting trousers. At the stirring of arousal in his own leggings, Cody tore his eyes off the entrancing sight and finally noticed that she was typing on her wrist computer. She never even paused when she stopped by her beast again, absently rubbing her cheek against its muzzle when the beast put its large head into her space and huffled a breath over her, which made the loose strands of her curly hair flutter.

It was possible that his heart fluttered at the same time.

_Frag. She gets even more beautiful every time I look at her. That’s just not kriffing fair._

He was so lost in his study of her expressive face, like the way she bit her bottom lip for two seconds in thought or how she grinned at whatever she was doing, that it took an elbow in his side from Rex for him to realize that text in Aurebesh had just appeared on the computer screen on his vambrace.

He read it, and then read it again, incredulous. _Well, shab. The girl is just full of surprises. I never expected her to know Aurebesh if she doesn’t know Basic, but maybe it’s the computer that knows Aurebesh. Yeah. That makes sense. We must still be in our own galaxy at least if that’s the case, right?_

_And what the kark does lol mean?_

And then he was glaring at Artoo for tattling about him acting out of character, which was promptly replaced by amazement at her response. He felt like grinning like a little kid at the knowledge that she liked his attentions, but somehow kept that look off of his face out of a belated sense of desperate self-preservation.

More writing on his computer, this time from his brother. **Hi Tezza. As has been pointed out, I’m Rex. It has been very nice to meet you, and I also am quite enjoying watching my brother fall all over you. Cody is sooooo overdue to be given a personality adjustment.**

 **In what way?** Tezza typed back, as Cody just barely restrained himself from smacking Rex upside the back of his head, only remembering at the last millisecond that his brother had already suffered from head trauma today and was only on his feet because of drugs and not actual healing.

**Oh, he’s always just so full of himself and usually so by-the-book it hurts. You are good for him, trust me.**

Cody sucked in a breath and glared at Rex, promising a solid ass-whooping when they got home. Rex just grinned, his eyes twinkling devilishly.

Tezza was twinkling at him too, but he had no desire to wipe the floor with her. _Rolling around on it, though…_ Now that was an option his body was entirely on board for. _Down boy!_

Before he completely died of embarrassment, Cody typed out a quick rebuttal. **Hey! I am not full of myself! I can’t help that I was trained to be a leader practically from day 1. And my by-the-book days are slowly but surely being wheedled out of me, thanks to our very inventive Generals!**

 **True.** Rex grinned at him.

Cody growled subtly but kept typing, then glanced up at Tezza to see her reaction to his words. **Ignore my idiot brother, please. I’m so happy you figured out a way for us to talk. This is much better than trying to convey words with actions alone.**

**Yes, it is. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it sooner. Maybe then those poor cops out there wouldn’t be taking an unexpected nap.**

Cody and Rex winced. **Ummm. Yeah. We’re sorry about that. But they were sneaking in a very suspicious way. We sort of acted out of instinct.**

Tezza patted Cody consolingly on the arm before typing out, **I’m sure it will be okay once we explain everything. How long will they be sleeping for, anyway?**

The clones shrugged and Rex answered. **Depends. Some people wake up in less than five minutes. Others, more than half an hour.**

**Hunh. Okay. Probably enough time for me to put CeCe out, then.**

**Probably,** Cody answered. **Just one more thing first.**

Tezza gave him a raised eyebrow, then looked back down at her comp, waiting for the translated words to show up.

**What does lol mean?**

She laughed. _I guess they don’t use that in their country. Wherever it is._ **Lol is short for laugh out loud. It means I’m making fun of myself. You don’t use short forms of frequently spoken things? For example, I almost wrote tbh instead of to be honest.**

Cody raised a brow. **No, we don’t. We don’t usually send messages back and forth like this, for one thing, when a holo call is so much easier.**

 **Unless you’re an astromech and flying!** Artoo inserted, making everyone chuckle.

Rex patted the droid on his dome fondly. “Yes, buddy. That’s very true.”

The girl thought about the holo call thing for a moment and gave a mental shrug. _From a certain point of view, I suppose that could be the case. Our society is just super enamored with texting still, despite decades old ‘new’ technologies. Their country must have finally moved on. I must remember to ask where they come from soon._ **I guess that’s true. I should put my horse out.**

**Okay.**

Tezza turned and grabbed a royal blue lead rope off of a hook on the wall and attached it the ring at the bottom of CeCe’s halter. She unclipped the crossties and led her horse past the cosplayers, who stepped back a bit out of respect for the hard hoofed animal. Aiming for the back of the barn, she turned right at the hallway that led to the indoor ring in one direction and the turnout paddocks in the other.

A few seconds later, the strange parade of woman, horse, ‘clones’, and robot made it back out into the sunshine. Tezza led the group up a long line of individual grass paddocks, with a gleaming horse happily grazing in each of the first six out of twenty available. Indicating that her audience should stay out in the alleyway, Tezza led CeCe into an empty paddock and turned him loose by undoing the snap on the side of his halter and pulling it off of his head. The gelding squealed excitedly at the freedom and took off at a canter, neighing to his friend in the paddock next door.

She watched him with an indulgent smile as she hung the halter and rope on the gate and then latched it closed behind her. CeCe made one whole circuit of the football field sized paddock and then came to an abrupt halt and dropped to his knees, rolling in the lush spring grass with grunts of pleasure. She laughed when her food oriented horse took a mouthful of grass before he heaved himself back onto his feet only to drop his muzzle to the grass again and tear off blades like he was starving. (He really wasn’t. Not even close.)

She leaned her arms on the fenceline, just indulging in watching her horse for a moment. He was so beautiful and practically her baby, since she’d been playing with him since he was a two day old foal. When her parents had purchased him for her when he was three, it had been the happiest day of her life. And then it had all come crashing down and her life would have been beyond empty if she didn’t have CeCe to hug while she cried out her very soul. (At least, that’s how it had felt at the time.)

* * *

Cody watched the girl with open longing. She was just so… breathtaking in her quiet beauty. The way the sun played with the metallic glints of gold and bronze in her hair made him want to see the mass released from the bun at the back of her neck. He wanted to know how long it actually was. In fact, he desperately wanted to see her wearing nothing but her hair.

And that scared him. Because he’d never felt an urge like that before in his life.

The clone Commander jumped slightly when Rex pushed him towards her. His brother jerked his chin at the girl. “Go stand with her. Talk to her,” Rex hissed under his breath when Cody just looked at him in confusion.

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh,” Rex whispered. “Artoo and I will go keep an eye on the cops and I’ll let you know when they start to stir. Go be a human for once and indulge yourself in something very few of us brothers will ever get.”

"If you're sure you don't mind?"

"I don't mind. Trust me, I want you to be happy."

Cody blinked, chest tightening with emotion. “Okay.”

Rex shot him an approving smile before he backed away with Artoo.

The slightly petrified clone inhaled deeply for courage and then stepped forward towards his destiny.

* * *

_Space…_

Anakin was mildly vibrating from the adrenaline rush of flying through the depths of the wormhole. It had fought him every second of the way, trying to toss the Sky Angel in any direction but straight forward, and he was positive that half the ship's systems were about to shut down on him at any given second based on the warning lights and alarms that had gone off at random. And… he’d nearly blacked out somewhere near the middle of the trip as an unbelievable amount of pressure had plastered him into his chair. He’d fought through it, though, calling on the Force to lend him strength.

It was literally the most intense flying he’d ever done, and considering his past, that was saying something.

As the wormhole finally spit them out with the spacial equivalent of disgust, he couldn’t wait to do it again.

Just don’t tell Padmè.

_Oh, Force! Padmè!_

Dropping the controls for a moment, Anakin let the Sky Angel drift as he leapt out of his chair and rushed back to the seat containing his beloved. Obi-Wan glared at him through a green countenance from the co-pilot seat, but refrained from speaking yet, probably because he was too busy fighting back nausea. Ahsoka, who was looking quite a bit paler than normal, but she’d also managed to stay conscious, gave him a weak smile of congratulations at keeping them alive as she unstrapped herself from her chair. Threepio had finally stopped saying ‘oh dear, oh dear’ in a fear filled loop and was rising from his chair to look at Dormè and Typho, who were also unconscious, but Anakin only had eyes for the woman in the purple dress.

She was slumped over sideways in her chair, but the safety straps had kept her from falling out of it, thank kriff. He didn’t want to think how injured she would be if she hadn’t been strapped in. He knelt on the floor by her chair and ran the backs of his fingers over her cheek in a gentle caress, sending a small surge of Force energy down their bond. “Mey, love,” the worried Jedi whispered. “Wake up for me, my angel.”

He held his breath as her dainty, purple shadowed eyelids fluttered, and then smiled in relief as her rich chocolate brown eyes blearily found his. “Ani,” she murmured, her hand raising limply to touch his face. “Did we make it?”

He caught her slender fingers in his and kissed the back of her knuckles. “We did.” He placed her hand gently in her lap and undid the safety straps for her, helping her sit up better. “Now all we have to do is find Rex and Cody, presumably on that planet just over there, and get back home again before the gateway closes.”

Padmè smiled at him with the strength swiftly returning to her form, thanks to a little help from the Force and their bond. “I have zero doubts that you’ll accomplish that since you always manage to do whatever you set your mind to.”

Anakin smiled back at his wife widely. “You know me so well.”

She leaned forward and touched her forehead to his. “Yes, I do.”

They stared at each other in loving silence for a few moments, oblivious to the others starting to move around the cockpit around them and the murmur of voices as Dormè and Typho also woke up with a little urging from Ahsoka.

Obi-Wan finally brought Anakin back to the urgency of their situation by clearing his throat loudly, and then giving him a mental nudge down their bond. “Your private moment is very touching and all, Anakin, but I don’t know if you happened to notice the fact that you flew us right into a fleet of unknown ships who appear to be gathering up pieces of the Reckless and are now treating us like a suspicious enemy?”

 _What?!_ Eyes widening in alarm, Anakin jumped back up onto his feet and rushed back to the pilot’s chair. Obi-Wan was right; they were almost entirely surrounded now by ships of an unfamiliar design. “Kriff. I was hoping this would be simple.”

Obi-Wan snorted under his breath. “When is anything ever simple for us?”

“Never,” Ahsoka said helpfully and even a little bit cheerfully as she came to stand behind Anakin’s chair.

He shot her look over his shoulder while weighing his options. They didn’t look good. He could try and run through the ships to the planet below, but who knew what defenses the planet had if they had space capable ships. Or he could wait here and try and talk his way down onto the planet. Presumably, they might know what had happened to Rex and Cody.

Anakin did a double take as he took in Ahsoka’s practically beaming features. “What has you so happy? This isn’t exactly a good situation. The sensors seem to think that most of those ships have some kind of weapons locked on us.”

She shrugged, unconcerned about the weapons. “I’m happy because I can feel Rex again and he’s very much alive.”

Anakin blinked and then squeezed her arm quickly in warm understanding. “That’s great. Now we just have to get him without getting ourselves blown up into tiny pieces.”

**Chime! Chime!**

Everyone looked at the console and the blinking light that indicated an incoming transmission.

“I think answering that might be a good way to start,” Obi-Wan said dryly.

“Really? I never would have thought of that,” Anakin said back just as dryly, not making any moves towards the console yet. He crossed his arms over his chest instead and gave his former Master a look of exasperation. " _Honestly, you still treat me like a child."_

 _"Only because you still act like one sometimes,"_ Obi-Wan sent blithely back down their bond.

_"Do not!"_

_"Do too!"_

The two Jedi proceeded to glare at each other in a semi friendly battle of wills. Ahsoka snickered quietly. The ships outside moved a bit closer.

**Chime! Chime!**

**Chime! Chime!**

**Chime! Chime!**

“Just answer the kriffing comm,” Padmè all but yelled from her chair in the back.

Anakin practically jumped to do her bidding.

Ahsoka snickered louder.

And Obi-Wan smirked.


	7. Surprise!

**Surprise!** :

_Never Too High Stables_

Tezza smiled at Cody when he came to lean on the fence beside her, propping his hip against it and facing her fully. His helmet was still tucked under his left arm, leaving him free to type on his comp. She turned too, her heart thumping a bit faster in her chest. A quick glance to where Cody and his brother used to be standing in the alleyway between paddocks showed her only the retreating backs of Rex and Artoo.

 **Where are they going?** she typed out quickly into the translation program.

His answer in Aurebesh came back a few moments later, but while he was typing, she stole the time to memorize his face. His features were so pleasingly put together and just seemed to scream ‘alpha male’. She absolutely adored his golden brown eyes, and this close, she could see the thick lashes that shadowed his defined cheekbones as he looked down in concentration. _Whoever painted his scar on did an amazing job. It looks so real. And sexy._

As he looked back up at her when he was done typing, she turned her gaze back down to her comp quickly, cheeks warming, hoping that he hadn’t caught her staring at him like an adoring fangirl. It took her a few seconds to process the words he'd sent her. **Ostensibly, they are going to watch the sleeping policemen, but it’s really just an excuse for us to have some time alone. We can join them if you are uncomfortable with that.**

“No!” she said before she could even think about it, shaking her head. Cody raised a brow and she quickly clarified. **No, we can stay. I… don’t mind spending a little time with you.** Her cheeks were definitely hot now, and the way he smiled at her in relief and approval wasn’t helping.

 **That’s good. Because I don’t know if you feel it too, but I’m hopelessly drawn to you,** he admitted.

She inhaled and forgot to let it out for a few seconds. _Oh god. Did he just say that?_ She read the words on her wrist comp again. _Yes, yes he did._ Then she looked up into his eyes and got hopelessly lost in them again, just like in the bathroom.

Cody’s heart was racing in his chest and he swore his hands were sweating in his gloves. But that was only noticed in the back of his mind. The rest of his brain power was taken up with searching the depths of her gem blue eyes, looking for who knew what, but it felt like he was finding it. His free hand rose and he was touching her face with the barest glance of his fingers. Her pupils dilated, for sure this time, and a hint of a groan escaped from what felt like the depths of his soul. “Tezza,” he murmured. “So beautiful.”

His eyes flicked down to her pink, soft, bow shaped lips. And she licked them, her little tongue making the briefest of appearances. “Frag, Tezza, tell me no,” he whispered as his head descended towards hers in a rate that gave her eons of time to pull away.

Tezza went perfectly still, heart barely beating, lungs barely moving, as he tilted his head down towards hers. Her hormones were screaming ‘yes, yes, yes!’ and her heart was saying ‘oh, stars, yes please’. Her brain had pretty much shut down as well, but it only gave one spurt of caution before blinking out too. “Yes,” she whispered back, and then rose a bit on her toes to meet him.

His hand tightened around her cheek and jaw, holding her still, and then his lips were touching hers, softer than anything. Their eyes met for half a moment, and then they both fluttered their lids closed. “Yes,” he whispered against her mouth, his breath warm and sending shivers through her. And then he was pushing against her mouth with a firmer pressure that made them both moan.

Cody could barely believe that he was actually kissing a female for the first time in his life, but he didn’t regret never having done it before, because it felt so right that this girl was his first ever kiss. Their mouths fit perfectly together as he caressed her petal soft lips with his own. His larger nose brushed against hers and over her cheek with each movement of their mouths. Her skin felt like satin. He wanted to feel more of it.

Groaning into their kiss, he dropped his helmet and tugged off his gloves, letting those fall as well. And then he was cupping both sides of her face and kissing her harder, licking at the seam of her lips, asking for entrance and pretending he knew what the kriff he was doing. (All those raunchy holomovies his brothers watched were finally being useful.) She opened on a whimpered inhale and he dove his tongue into her. She met him with her own and they were both groaning in moments as electric sensations raced through them at the daring contact.

Tezza trembled with desire in his grasp as his long fingers tightened in her hair and tilted her head just a bit to explore a new angle that made everything even better. Her hands had ended up on his hard chest armour at some point, but she wanted more. So she snaked them up around his neck and pulled him down even closer to her.

Cody’s answer to that was to move one arm down to her waist and basically pick her up, pressing her closer to his chest.

She approved wholeheartedly, making more noises she had no idea she could make into their unbreakable kiss. Her toes were no longer touching the ground, and his strength made her feel like she weighed about as much as a pillow. It was an incredible turn on.

The first and last time she’d been kissed was by an American boy she’d met at a horse show back when she was sixteen. She’d thought Nero was super cute and they’d spent most of their spare minutes together for four days straight. And then it was Sunday and the last day of the show and they’d realized that he was going back home and they wouldn’t be able to see each other again for who knew how long. So they’d found a quiet corner in one of Never Too High’s tack stalls and found themselves suddenly kissing.

It had felt like she was being kissed by a fish.

The boy had obviously been turned on, panting heavily and clearly enjoying it, but Tezza had been left feeling cold and seriously disappointed. Everything she’d thought kissing was supposed to be was missing and she’d pulled away after a minute and told the poor boy that it would never work between them, with how far apart they lived and her not having time, blah blah blah. She’d felt like a bitch and a tease at the hurt expression on his face, but she just couldn’t pretend when there was no chemistry.

But kissing Cody? _Now this is chemistry. Holy cow! It feels like I’m going to combust._

And then there was a heavy breath across the top of her head and large curious lips covered in ticklish whiskers waffling across the tops of their foreheads.

Cody dropped her and practically leapt backwards in surprise, nearly falling down as he tripped over his helmet before he caught himself with a loud, “Kark!” that needed no translation.

Tezza burst into laughter, turning and hugging her mood killing horse around the neck as he hung his head over the fence. “Oh, buddy, you have terrible timing, you know that?” she whispered against his cheek between giggles.

But her mirth quickly subsided as she realized her horse’s curiosity at what they were doing was probably a good thing. Things had gotten way too intense way too quickly. _Wasn’t I just telling myself that I wasn’t going to act like a slut? And what was I doing?_

_I was about two seconds away from wrapping my legs around his waist and riding him like a cowgirl while playing tongue tag, that’s what I was doing._

_Shame on me._

Tezza blushed fiercely as she peeked at Cody from under CeCe’s head. He was looking almost just as flustered as she felt, which made her feel a tiny fraction better. _Maybe he wasn’t expecting to react like that either?_

_One thing’s for sure; I want more time to actually get to know him first before we do the whole mindless passion thing again._

_But after that?_

_I want more of those heart melting, mind blowing, and shiver inducing kisses._

* * *

Cody had no idea that kissing could be so overwhelmingly wonderful.

His senses were still full of Tezza, even after he had let her go. Her intriguing scent was permanently etched into his nostrils. Her every gasp and moan and whimper would haunt his dreams for years to come. Her taste soared along his taste buds and jumped through his bloodstream like a drug. The feel of her silky skin and hair under his hands was still sending tingles up his arms. And all he wanted was to drink in the sight of her for the rest of his days and never close his eyes again.

_And if that’s just the kissing part, what is the rest of it going to be like?_

The insistent throbbing in the mid region of his bodysuit said he had bloody well better find out or something was going to revolt.

Fortunately, he wasn’t ruled by his unruly body. Because he doubted that Tezza would take too kindly to him going all caveman on her and pushing her down into the grass and tearing off her clothes as fast as humanly possible.

_But, kriff, I think I would give up caf for a year if it meant that I could see her naked for even a minute._

Huffing, he rubbed a hand over his short hair in frustration, and then pushed the worst of his riotous emotions back into the box they usually lived in. (A defense mechanism that had been trained into from a young age and was the only way he could send his brothers out die in battle after battle after battle.) Bending, he picked up his gloves and helmet again, and then stepped forward and patted the surprisingly velvet soft nose of the large beastie that had nearly given him a heart attack a minute ago; CeCe’s whiskers had honestly felt like a spider or something crawling along the top of his head. (Having experienced more than a few instances of the real thing while camping on the battlefields of various planets, Cody had developed a bit of an aversion to them.) _Honestly, I don't think I've been on a single planet yet that didn't have a spider type insect of some kind creeping around and waiting to pounce on me._

Tezza was still flushed and beautiful as she unburied her face from CeCe’s neck. He gave her a dopey smile, his joy in her sneaking right back out of the imaginary box. “Tezza,” he rumbled from somewhere deep in his chest. He had so many things he wanted to say to her - things like, ‘would you like to be mine for ever and ever?’ or ‘you taste like heaven and I want to kiss you until our eyes cross and our souls merge’ – but he didn’t think those would be appropriate to put on a computer that Rex and Artoo would read too, and then inevitably tease him about until they finally kicked the bucket. And... he wasn’t sure if he could take the rejection if she laughed at him if he were to write something so vulnerable.

So he settled on just leaving it with her name only and staring at her with all of the longing that had jumped right back out of the box as well. _I really need to get a better box._

Much to his satisfaction. She flushed a little more as she glanced at the grass shyly for a moment, and then her eyes popped right back up. “Cody,” she breathed. His name on her lips sounded absolutely perfect. He wanted to hear her moan it, and scream it, too. Her hand raised, hovering in the air just above his heart for a moment before she settled it on his chestplate. And then she shook her head, an apology in her eyes.

His heart almost broke until she quickly raised her other hand as well and quickly typed into her little computer, **Too fast, too soon, but not a no, okay? More talking first? I want to know more about you.**

He read it right off of her computer as she typed it, since it was right under his nose, and for the first time, he saw that she was using a translation program that changed symbols that he didn’t recognize into Aurebesh ones. The same symbols were in the digital keypad of the computer that covered about a hand’s worth of her wrist and lower forearm, making it clear that Aurebesh was not her native alphabet. _I could learn her language with this! It doesn’t look all that complicated._

He was distracted enough by the thought that his joy at her non rejection was tempered slightly, but not much. Cody beamed at her and quickly typed back into his own comp, **Okay.**

They smiled at each other like happy fools, the moment not ending until her comp beeped with another incoming message from Rex. **The policemen are starting to twitch.**

 **Coming!** Tezza typed in, then gave her beast one last pat and said something to it before taking off at a swift jog.

Cody followed, of course.

At that point, he was pretty sure he would follow her anywhere.

* * *

_NASA Headquarters_

Administer Alex Champilo was juggling what felt like a hundred different conversations at once, between the technicians in the Command room with him, the information coming back from the ships sent up to the wormhole, and the updates from Gibson’s retrieval team that were still delayed at the Niagara Falls border crossing because the Canadian Air Force had decided that they were going to escort the NASA ships to the crash site whether they liked it or not. _Not that I blame them, I would do the same if the situation was reversed, but still… It’s bloody annoying._

“Sir, one of the ships has found what looks like writing on one of the pieces of debris! It looks like a door!” Letty Evans, who was in charge of the cleanup crews, said excitedly.

“Put it up on the screen.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The big screen at the front of the room that had been split into twenty or so boxes of recordings being sent back from ships and probes was suddenly filled with two groupings of symbols.

The room went silent in only seconds as eyes widened in shock.

“Not possible,” Alex breathed.

“Is that…”

“Aurebesh?” someone else finished the sentence that Gibson had started.

Being NASA, of course there wasn’t a single person in the room who wasn’t a Star Wars nerd. Even closing in on two hundred years after the first movie had been released, the franchise lived on. Forty movies, a couple dozen cartoon series’, and countless comics and books had been made about the galaxy from far far away, spanning a 6000 year time frame, but everyone still loved the original trilogy’s era the best and all the people who had lived in that timeframe, from Luke Skywalker to Cad Bane to Ahsoka Tano.

Alex stared and stared at the familiar symbols, easily translating the words. Never had the unique letteringbeen such a welcome sight to him, except for maybe that time at Star Wars Con when he'd gone a frantic search for a door labelled, 'Mens Refresher' because his innards had decided to have a bad reaction to the extra large Rainbow Berry Blue Milkshakes he'd had three of because they tasted so freaking good.

He was hit by something of an epiphany as he stared at the symbols with somewhat bugged out eyes. _Holy shit. Is it possible that everything that we’ve invented about another place was actually real?_ _Does that mean the Force is real too? Have the creators of Star Wars been having visions all this time?_

“Somebody pull up the image of the intact ship that came out of the wormhole again!” he barked.

In seconds, a grainy photo filled the wall sized screen and everyone stared at it like they’d just seen a ghost.

“How did none of you not notice that that thing looks almost exactly like a bloody Y-Wing?!”

“Ummmmm…” his people looked at each and cringed.

They were saved from Alex’s wrath by Gibson.

“Sir, the Canadians just received a 911 text from the crash site. Apparently our visitors didn’t take kindly to authorities sneaking up on them. They have two police officers unconscious and a girl in a possible hostage situation.”

“Fuck. Get your men there yesterday! I don’t care if the Air Force has arrived to escort them or not!”

“They all just left the border,” Gibson reassured. “ETA, fifteen minutes.”

“That will have to be good enough, I suppose.”

Movement caught his peripheral vision, so Alex turned to see Evans practically bouncing up and down in an attempt to get his attention. "Yes?"

“Another large piece of whatever got wrecked just emerged from the anomaly!”

“On screen!

They all watched as a massive wedge of tangled metal flew out of the wormhole and barreled towards one of the salvage ships that wasn’t even a tenth of the size. The salvage ship dodged out of the way just in time and the cameras followed the mountain sized piece of what he assumed used to be the majority of a very big spaceship as it spun and tumbled on a course that would eventually have it crashing into Earth.

“Bloody hell! Tell them to catch that before we have a city sized crater in Africa!”

“Already did that, Sir,” Evans said, even as the cameras showed three ships chasing after the wreckage.

Everyone watched with bated breath as grappling cables were shot at the potential threat to Earth and exhaled in relief and then cheered as they caught and the powerful ships dragged the debris to a stop with plenty of room to spare. It hadn’t even passed the imaginary orbiting line of the space station yet.

“Sir!”

“Now what?” Alex snapped.

“You have to see this, Sir.”

The room hushed once more as the screen changed back to a view of the wormhole and what had just flown out of it. And in this case it was definitely flown out, not spit out.

Alex’s breath caught in silent awe at the sight of the gleaming, arrow shaped ship that soon came to a halt in space.

“Oh. My. God,” Gibson said for pretty much everyone.

“Amidala’s ship, right?” Evans said, turning around and looking up at Alex. “Please tell me that looks like Amidala’s ship to you too.”

“It looks like Amidala’s ship to me too,” he said in a strangled monotone, too close to having a complete meltdown to let any emotion show in his voice at all.

The people in the room remained quiet as they all waited for something to happen. When nothing did after a minute, and Alex had kick-started his brain back into command mode and out of fanboy nerd mode, he barked, “Surround it. Based on the situation in Canada, we can’t assume that they are friendly.”

“Yes, Sir.” Evans started giving rapid orders into her headset and Alex watched the salvage ships move accordingly. Fortunately, they weren’t just salvage ships, but all purpose exploration spaceships with shields and weapons. Not having cracked the science yet for hyper or warp drives, NASA’s manned explorations into outer space hadn’t gone further than ten solar systems in any direction, and those still took decades with the speed they had managed to get out of their spaceships. (But they had sent probes to every corner of the galaxy long before the spaceships had been built, so they did have a pretty good idea of what was out there. And so far, another intelligent species wasn't included.)

Once the Nubian yacht had been surrounded on every side but the wormhole’s, Alex said, “Hail them.”

And then they waited for what felt like an eternity before an image of a young man appeared on the big screen. He was wearing black Jedi robes and was almost breathtakingly handsome, with collar length, wavy, dark gold hair, piercing blue eyes, and a scar that ran along the edge of his right one from mid-forehead to cheekbone. He smiled at them appealingly and spoke some words that not a single person recognized.

 _Anakin Skywalker! It’s freaking Anakin Skywalker!_ Alex was close to hyperventilating again as fanboy mode kicked back in. He wasn’t alone. Nearly every single woman in the room sighed, most of the men cursed in surprise and awe, and Evans looked like she might be on the verge of having a private moment right at her desk. 

Aside from instantly recognizing what he was pretty sure was one of the most iconic and polarizing Star Wars characters ever, Alex came to another conclusion. _I think the faint hope that English and Basic is the same language has just been crushed like a bug._

_So... Now what?_

_Other Star Wars languages!_

“Does anyone here speak Huttese?!” Alex said almost frantically.

“I do,” a tech said from the bowels of the large, multi-leveled room. Alex peered down at the scrawny twenty-something boy who literally personified the term ‘nerd’.

“Whitely, right?”

“Yes, Sir.” Whitely beamed at being recognized.

“Start by welcoming him to our galaxy.”

Whitley nodded and then turned back to the screen.

“Chowbasa tah Earth doma toma.”

* * *

_Huttese translations:_

_Chowbasa tah Earth doma toma – Welcome to Earth space._

* * *

**A/N: And that’s it! This story is done!**

**Haha, just kidding. I couldn’t resist, considering it’s April Fool’s day. But really, I think the joke’s on me, because I have once again underestimated how much writing it takes to explain what I think is a short plot bunny. Also, I woke to 3 inches of fresh snow on the ground that had been almost completely bare yesterday. Blah.**


	8. Revelation

**A/N: Surprise!** **After months of neglecting many of my stories while I concentrated on only a few, the guilt of abandoning them has finally done me in. Which means that I’m going to put ALL 13 of my WIPs back in an equal rotation.**

**But what I will also do is make sure that I update whichever story has the most combined favs and kudos from the two sites I post on at the beginning of every week as a thank you to the people who are supporting that story.**

**I hope this works for everyone. I know some of you have been begging me to update stories that have been ignored for more than a year now, and I’m finally going to start doing so... 1000 + words at a time. :D**

* * *

**A/N 2: Just gotta say this, because I mentioned the live action return of Ahsoka in an earlier chapter; they’re (supposedly) casting for Ezra now!!!!!!!! I’m so kriffing excited, it’s not even funny. (Squeeeeeeeee!)**

* * *

**Revelation:**

_Never Too High Stables..._

The younger looking cop was just sitting up, a hand to his head, as Tezza ran around the corner of the stable and out into the front yard, Cody right on her heels.

Passing by Artoo and Rex, who looked like he was on high alert with his hands hovering over his guns (blasters, whatever), she rushed over to him and knelt in the manicured grass that boarded the large gravel pathway to the front doors. She raised a hand to touch his shoulder in concern, but then dropped it quickly when she figured that might be a little too forward with an officer of the law. She settled for a, “Hey. How you feeling?" as she handed him his hat that had fallen off.

The blue eyed and pale skinned officer who looked about twenty stared at her blearily as he put his hat on automatically, covering a head full of short cropped brown curls. (Honestly, if she hadn’t just met Cody and had her figurative socks blown off, she’d be thinking this guy was pretty hot.) “Uhhh... Okay? What happened? Who are you?” His eyes flicked over her, clarity returning to them quickly, but then moved on quickly without any further show of professional or male interest as he searched for and found the older cop on the other side of the pathway, who chose that moment to groan himself awake. “Mike!”

Tezza chose not to be offended as the young cop scanned the ground, found his gun, then snatched it up and jumped up to his feet in one smooth move before hurrying over to the other officer without giving her another glance. He wasn’t the first male to ignore her and he wouldn’t be the last. Cody was either blind or truly special if he was actually as attracted to her as he acted, because Tezza had once been told she was about as bland ‘girl next door’ type as a person could get. Her features were average. Her weight and figure were average. Even her hair was blah and average, being stuck somewhere between blond and brunette. She thought that her eyes were her best feature, but most people don’t actually look at irises long enough to pick out pretty gold flecks inside the blue.

Cody was only the second guy ever who had taken the time to look at her eyes and smile. And he was by far a million times more attractive to her than Nero had ever been.

_And, my gosh, can he ever kiss! I swear my insides melted._

She shook off the tingle of remembered desire and hurried after the as yet unnamed younger cop, pre-emptively standing in front of Cody and Rex, just in case. (The brothers were standing shoulder to shoulder now, looking ready to pounce and / or shoot if the cops made so much as a single wrong move.)

Turns out her instincts were right.

“Ugh. What hit me?” the darker skinned Mike said as Young Cop slapped the second fallen gun into his partner's hand and then helped him up with a strong tug of the wrist.

Young Cop turned and faced the ones he perceived as the threat, looking right over Tezza as if she didn’t exist. (Story of her life short person problem.) “They did, I think.”

Mike narrowed his eyes and she saw his entire frame tense into a defensive cop stance, two hands on his gun and pointed right at Cody. Young Cop echoed the move, his gun pointed over her shoulder at Rex.

She heard the armoured brothers shift slightly behind her, Artoo beep in alarm, and the cops in front of her tensed even further.

_Crap! This is not going to end well!_

“Stop!” she all but yelled, holding her hands up and stepping forward, drawing the cops attentions and guns to her.

“Tezza!” Cody exclaimed in a worried tone from behind her. She waved a quick hand behind her back, signalling him to stay put before he made this worse, and then quickly put it back up in the air.

“Stop,” she said again, more calmly. “This is all just a big misunderstanding. They were just protecting me. They didn’t know you were the good guys.”

The cops didn’t look impressed with her explanation at all. “I’m sorry, Ma’am,” Mike said, a hint of bitter annoyance in his tone. “But that’s no excuse for using violence against law enforcement.”

“I know, I know,” she said, tone soothing, taking another tiny step forward like she was approaching a panicking horse. “But they’re not from around here. They don’t even understand English.”

“Really,” Young Cop said dryly, exhibiting a severe case of disbelief. His gun was back to being pointed over her shoulder.

“Really,” she said, taking another step forward. She lowered her left hand slowly and tilted her wrist computer towards them so they could see the open translation program on the screen. “Look. This is how I’ve been talking to them.”

Both Mike and Young Cop leaned forward a bit to see, their eyebrows rising as they read about themselves twitching. Then they rose further as they noticed the second language. She unobtrusively used the opportunity to lower her other hand as well since her shoulder was starting to hurt. (Too many falls off of young horses.)

Probably curious despite himself, Mike asked, “What language is that? It looks familiar.”

“It’s Aurebesh.”

Both cops blinked. Young Cop raised a brow again even as both of their guns lowered to a more relaxed position at their sides. “Isn’t that the Star Wars language?”

“It is,” she said, smiling at him for being clever. “I think they’re cosplayers. The one with orange stripes is calling himself Cody. The blue stripes calls himself Rex, and they’ve even named their robot after R2-D2. He responds to Artoo, just like in the shows and movies. It’s amazing really.”

“Hunh.” Mike didn’t look quite as impressed as Young Cop, who was looking over the people behind her with the beginnings of fanboy respect showing in his eyes. (She knew exactly how he felt.) “That would explain why their unregistered PAC has been made to look like a Star Wars ship of some sort, but it doesn’t explain what they’re doing in Canada.”

 _That’s actually a good question,_ she thought as she glanced back over her shoulder to see what the brothers where doing now. She was surprised to see that they’d taken their helmets off again and had moved up silently to stand almost directly behind her, just off to either side; she hadn’t heard a thing. _They really are highly trained soldiers under the costumes, aren’t they. Probably best not to mention that theory to the cops just yet. It might freak them out again._

_And no wonder the cops relaxed. The guys are doing a great job of looking very non threatening right now. Maybe when they heard their names, they thought I was introducing them._

Cody caught her eye as she glanced at him and typed something into his wrist comp. She looked at hers at the same time the cops did. **Tell them we are sorry for stunning them unnecessarily. But they were acting like hostiles, so we acted from instinct.**

Tezza almost snorted. _So much for hiding the fact that they’re trained soldiers._

Mike got that suspicious look in his dark brown eyes again, obviously picking up on the clues as well. “Ask them where they’re from, please. And what they’re doing here.”

She quickly typed in the requested questions and then turned again so she could see Cody’s face as he read them. He didn’t seem surprised. Resigned and a little amused maybe, as he typed in his answers.

The three Canadians waited almost impatiently for the reply to show up on Tezza’s computer. And when it did, she did snort this time. **We are based on a planet called Coruscant, but originally came from a different planet called Kamino. As to what we’re doing here, well, that’s obvious... We crashed.**

Mike huffed and Young Cop actually barked out a laugh. “You know you’re too enmeshed in your own cosplay when...”

“I know, right?” Shaking her head in amusement, she typed in, **Very funny, Cody. But where are you from really? The cops won’t stay in a good mood for long if you don’t tell the truth.**

* * *

Cody stared at the screen on his vambrace, trying not to feel as hurt as he was at her disbelief. “Why do they think we’re not telling the truth?” he asked Rex, looking up and seeing a similar look of bafflement on his blond brother’s face. “Where else could we possibly be from?”

“I don’t know. Certainly not here. They know Aurebesh, even if they don’t speak Basic, which is weird, but whatever, and that means that they must know about the rest of the galaxy, right?”

“That’s what I would assume.” Cody glanced at Tezza and found her waiting expectantly for his answer, her beautiful blue eyes still twinkling a little from what she seemed to think was his joke (which he really didn't get). The police officers were starting to get antsy again at how long it was taking him to answer. (He didn't like them. Especially the younger one who kept surreptitiously sweeping his eyes over Tezza's pleasingly shaped form every time her back was turned.) 

Not wanting to delay the inevitable any longer - and hoping to get Lusty Cop's eyes off his girl as fast as possible - Cody typed out the best explanation he could come up with that he hoped made sense to these people.

**But I am telling you the truth. Rex and I are stationed at the GAR base on Coruscant but we’ve been fighting in the Outer Rim lately. Our fleet was flying through the Kwymar sector, on our way to Kestos Minor, when our Venator was caught in an uncharted wormhole. The main ship was destroyed, but we managed to escape on that still smoking Y-Wing over there and ended up crashing here, on your planet.** _Where I met you and lost all sense of reality as I fell into the new galaxy found in your eyes._

If the cops weren't clearly reading Tezza's computer readout with her, and Rex on his own, who would guarantee tease him till the end of time for being a romantic sap, he might even have been brave enough to add that last part. 

Cody hit send and then waited with baited breath for Tezza’s reaction. _Please, please believe me. I don’t want you to think I’m a liar._

* * *

Tezza had to read the message twice, and then she still had trouble believing it, even though she knew there was a recently appeared wormhole above Earth that corroborated his story.

Because if what Cody said was true, then she’d just kissed Commander Cody from the Star Wars universe. THE Commander Cody from the Star Wars universe. Her favourite clone of all time. The one who her heart broke for every time she watched the control chip take over his mind and make him order the death of his close friend, Obi-Wan Kenobi. The one who suffered injury after injury and still kept on fighting from the front of the line. The one who led and cared for literally millions of his own brothers as Marshall Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic.

The one who must have a heart made of gold and be as big as the sun to do what he did.

Most people fawned over Rex, or Jesse, or Fives and Echo, but Cody would always be the true hero of the Clone Wars to her. _And he’s standing right behind me._

_And I kissed him._


	9. Precautions

**Precautions:**

_Space…_

With a glance, Anakin made sure the holo comm was set to show just the person in the pilot’s chair and then he allowed it to make the connection to the foreign frequency that was hailing them.

No image appeared on his end, but the computer said the line was open so he said, “Hello. Sorry to jump in to your system unannounced like this, but we mean no harm. We just want to retrieve our friends who preceded us.”

There was silence for about twenty seconds, but it didn’t feel empty. Through the Force, Anakin sensed surprise more than anything. And then a male nearly yelled in an unknown language, ending his sentence in the word ‘Huttese’.

As more unknown words were called over the comm that he somehow knew weren’t meant for him, Anakin glanced over at Obi-Wan in the co-pilot chair and they exchanged looks of intrigue. _“Apparently they don’t know Basic, but someone might know Huttese?”_

 _“Apparently,”_ Obi-Wan returned in a dry mental tone. _“Just how far to the back end of nowhere are we?”_

_“Very far, I’m guessing. None of the star systems the scanners are picking up look familiar, and I’m pretty sure we’ve travelled practically every known millimetre of the galaxy during the war.”_

_“We have.”_ Obi-Wan’s mental tone was somehow even dryer than before.

And then one of the voices on the comm said in Huttese, **“Welcome to Earth space.”**

“Where the kriff is Earth?” Ahsoka muttered from behind his chair.

“I’ve never heard of a planet called Earth,” Threepio responded. “Has anyone else?”

To a chorus of no’s which he hoped the comm unit wasn’t picking up, Anakin addressed the voice on the comm in his first language. “Thank you. My apologies for our sudden appearance. But we’re here to retrieve our friends who preceded us through the wormhole.”

**“Ummmm. Okay. Good. Just hang on a second.”**

Anakin’s brows went up as the second voice spoke in the original language and was answered by the first, more dominant sounding voice. _I think he’s asking for instructions from his commander._

And then, **“Okay, the boss says that’s fine. You can follow an escort ship to Headquarters and your friends will be brought there to meet you.”**

Anakin smiled slightly at being right as he nodded. “That is fine. But I’d like to keep this as quick as possible. We want to go back through the wormhole before it closes.”

A pause as more conferring occurred in the other language and then voice two said, “ **We understand. We’ll keep this as brief as we can, but there are a few people who’d really like to meet you. And…”** Another pause as more voices spoke in the background. **“We have sensors on the wormhole now. It is currently reading as stable as these things get. We’ll let you know if that changes even by a degree.”**

He was relieved to hear that. “Thank you. I see also that you are gathering up the debris from our destroyed warship. If you come across any more survivors or bodies while we’re here, we’ll pick them up as well.”

More rapid talking.

**“The boss says that is good but so far we haven’t encountered any, but we just started not that long ago.”**

“Okay. Glad to hear it.” _I hope that means that everyone made it out the correct end of the wormhole in one piece. Except for poor Rex and Cody, of course._ “Who am I following?”

Even as he asked the question, one of the ships surrounding them turned around and faced the planet. “Oh. Never mind. I see. Thank you.”

And so Anakin and co followed a ship of unknown design down to a planet called Earth.

* * *

 _Meanwhile, back at Never Too High Stables…_

Cody watched Tezza and the cops read his message as they all crowded over her wrist comm. He didn’t really care what the officers thought, so his attention was all on her expressive face.

Her eyes widened, and then again, going absolutely huge, and then she turned those eyes on him and he didn’t know what to do with that. _Does she believe me or not?_

The officers were saying something, exclamations of some sort, but she didn’t seem to hear them. She just stared at him with that unfathomable look that made him wish he could read minds like the Jedi.

He smiled tentatively, which seemed to snap her out of the wide-eyed gawk she’d had going on, and she moved her arm up to type rapidly.

**Holy crap! You’re REAL!!!!!!!!!!**

Cody blinked at the message on his computer and then looked at Rex helplessly. “What the kark does that mean?”

Rex shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? Weren’t we real before?”

“I thought so.”

Cody typed back, **Was I not real before?** _What did you think you were kissing? A ghost?_

She shook her head at him in a sort of frustrated looking way and then moved to start typing again, but that was interrupted by Artoo calling out a warning.

“There are more ships approaching rapidly,” he beeped, rocking on his struts.

Cody almost growled in frustration as Tezza looked at him in askance and the cops turned their gazes to the astromech with almost awed looking expressions. He didn’t have a clue as to why that would be, though. _Maybe they’ve never seen a droid before?_

 **Artoo says there are more ships coming,** he typed in rapidly, just in time for the sound of the engines of said ships to reach them.

* * *

 _Now what,_ Tezza thought in annoyance when Artoo started beeping.

And then it turned out to be more trouble, and her annoyance turned into trepidation as she spun and around and squinted at the sky until the fast moving aircraft came closer, inspiring her to exclaim, “Fudge on a stick! That’s exactly what we need right now!” as the Canadian Air Force insignia became visible on the side of two of the aircraft and the NASA symbol on the other two.

The cops laughed and shook their heads at her. “What did you expect when clone soldiers from a galaxy far, far away crashed into your jumping ring?” Mike said dryly.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged helplessly. _But I’m afraid I’ll never see Cody again after they drag him away to perform horrible experiments on him or something._

As the four large aircraft landed on the front lawn, probably leaving permanent dents in the manicured grass, Tezza turned to look at Cody and Rex. The clones looked tense, and looked like they desperately wanted to put their helmets back on and go to war, but were admirably restraining themselves as they looked at her with questions in their matching amber eyes. 

**It will be okay,** she typed in rapidly in reassurance. _I hope._ **It's just more of the authorities come to investigate your crash.**

 **Okay,** Cody typed back, trusting her. _Thank goodness._

When she turned back around, she was dismayed but somehow not surprised to see that soldiers with rifles at the ready were pouring out of the Air Force transports and people in yellow Hazmat suits were doing the same from the NASA planes. _That's just great._

The two police officers moved to talk to the two in charge looking men from either group, leaving Tezza and her new friends to wonder what was being said as a rather enthusiastic amount of hand gestures and arm waving took place. _I'm guessing the fact that they come from another galaxy is in there somewhere,_ she thought with reluctant amusement when the Air Force commander did a double take in their direction. The NASA minion didn't seem surprised, unsurprisingly.

And then the NASA guy and the Air Force guy started arguing in tones that where just quiet enough to make it impossible to catch the words, but their body language said neither was going to back down anytime soon. 

While she watched the show with increasing amusement, Cody moved so he was right beside her, his arm brushing hers. She glanced up at him and smiled, receiving a beautiful smile back. Her heart fluttered, she was pretty sure.

 **What is happening?** he typed.

**Not sure. But I'm guessing they're arguing over who gets jurisdiction over your care.**

**Our care?** His eyebrow on the unscarred side rose.

**Yes. Someone's going to help you and undoubtedly question you. But one group is the military unit for the country you landed in and the other group is from a neighbouring country but is the acknowledged leader in all things relating to space.**

**I see. Both have claim on us, then.**

**Yes.**

**Who do you think will win?**

Tezza glanced back at the stand off, both men glaring at each other, and shrugged. **Not sure yet, but if I had to guess, I'd say the space guy. American's are notoriously stubborn.**

Cody huffed softly. **I know a few people like that.** **I'm guessing the man all covered in yellow is the space guy?**

**That would be correct.**

**WHY is he all covered like that?**

**Yeah, why?** Rex texted into their conversation.

Tezza winced apologetically. **Uhhh. They may think that since you come from another galaxy, you might carry contagions that we are not immune to. We had a bad pandemic a year ago and lost a huge portion of Earth's population. Everyone is still super anal retentive about the spread of germs and disinfecting everything.**

 **That makes sense,** Cody typed, glancing over at the STILL arguing commanders before giving her a curious look with an undertone of remembered heat. **You're not worried that l contaminated you?**

She blushed as Rex gave his brother a congratulatory elbow nudge but managed to keep her gaze on Cody's for a telling moment. **Nah. I was raised on horse dirt. Not much makes me sick. And even if there was a chance, l'd take it anyway.**

He sucked in a breath and the look in his eyes practically turned the amber irises to flames. She had a really good feeling he'd be kissing her again right now if they were alone. 

She certainly wasn't opposed to the idea. 

As is, she leaned a little closer into him to show it, returning the look of desire. 

Cody was still smiling quite brilliantly at her maybe a minute of unspoken but very telling looks later when Rex cleared his throat pointedly and looked at her wrist comp. 

**What did you mean when you said we were from another galaxy?**

She shrugged. **Exactly that. We're the only sentient life forms in our galaxy. We've explored the whole thing very thoroughly in the last hundred years. Your planets aren't here.**

The men looked at her in amazement. And then Cody's eyes narrowed in the first hints of suspicion. **Then how does your computer know Aurebesh?**

Tezza grinned widely. **Funny thing, that. You'll never believe the answer.**

The clones raised nearly identical eyebrows (Rex's were a few shades lighter). **Try us.**

Before Tezza could tell them, the arguing duo came to an agreement. The Air Force commander spun on his heel and gestured angrily for his troops to pile back into their transports. The Hazmat covered NASA man strode towards them with the policemen on his heels. 

_Called it. But now what happens?_


	10. Proof (part 1)

**Proof (part 1):**

What happens now turned out to be NASA taking every living thing that the clone brothers had touched or shared air with into custody for ‘quarantine’ purposes. Her, the police officers, her horse. Even the cats.

After introducing Cody, Rex, and Artoo to the NASA guy who’d won the ‘I have more right to them than you do’ battle, explaining that yes, they were the REAL Commander Cody, Captain Rex, and R2-D2 from Star Wars, and then further reassuring him that no, she wasn’t in a hostage situation (she had no idea where they got idea from), and finally showing him how she’d been communicating with them (which he demanded she let him in the loop on), the man then proceeded to say that they were all going with him and that they were apparently going to be met by some more people looking for Cody and Rex. (He didn’t know who, much to the brothers’ disappointment, but Rex seemed to think it was Ahsoka and Skywalker, saying that no one was more determined, stupider, or braver than them and that they would totally forge through a dangerous wormhole to get their friends back.)

The barn itself was put under lockdown orders until it could be scrubbed thoroughly by another specialty team that had to be called in, which was fortunately easy to do since the rest of the staff and riders were at a horse show. (Tezza had to call them and explain the situation so they could send someone back to look after the rest of the horses because she had no idea how long she’d be under the tender care of the NASA minions. (Yes, she actually said NASA minions, earning a dirty look from a nearby yellow suit.)

After an amusing five minutes of watching the minions try and catch the barn cats, who were understandably suspicious of the yellow hazmat suits, they eventually let Tezza catch them for them. But she didn’t have any carriers on hand for the felines, and neither did the NASA people, so they were now in the arms of Cody and Rex and quite happy about it if the purrs were anything to go by as the brothers stroked and scratched and petted. (She envied the cats. Especially Tangy, who Cody had chosen because of her orange colour.)

Rex, once he’d read the translation for Domino’s name, almost became misty eyed as he hugged his cat. It took her a moment to figure out why, but then she’d remembered that some of his favourite brothers came from Domino squad. She then wondered where he was in his timeline and if he’d lost Fives and Echo yet, but now wasn’t the time to ask, especially considering she hadn’t yet had time to explain how she knew about them.

The minions did get the privilege of carrying the cats’ beds, a bag of their food, their dishes, and their litterbox, though. (And wow, were they happy about that. Not.)

Tezza had then put some shavings and a haybag in the cargo area of one of the NASA transports and loaded CeCe into the relatively large space, tying him to a handy ring on the wall beside the one holding his haybag. Fortunately, he was used to flying, having been to a few small schooling shows, but he’d still snorted all the way up the ramp into the unfamiliar ship that looked and smelled nothing like a horse trailer.

She’d also made the minions load up two weeks worth of hay bales, a dozen bags of bedding, a bag of his complete feed pellets, buckets, extra blankets, and her tack box into the other transport because they didn’t know how long they’d be ‘quarantined’ for and she was determined that her horse would not suffer for it. 

By the time all of that was done, she could tell that the NASA minion in charge (who had instructed them to call him Smythe or Sir) was regretting saying that the animals had to come too, but he couldn’t take back his ridiculous command or he’d look bad, so he’d visibly gritted his teeth and lived with it.

Tezza was internally laughing her head off at him for being stubborn while at the same time grateful that she’d get to spend more time with Cody without having to lose access to her favourite animals.

Cody and Rex had watched all of this with a twinkle in their amber eyes as well that belied the impassive expressions on their faces. (She’d typed in brief explanations as to what was happening whenever she could, which really hadn't been much, but it was enough to keep them informed enough to get the gist of current events and be just as amused as she was.)

And then, just because Smythe had let her get away with so many other demands and it was kind of necessary anyway, Tezza had dashed up to her little apartment above the barn and grabbed her purse and packed a suitcase with everything she thought she might need for an extended stay in the States. Including her barely used passport, the majority of the contents from her bathroom and bedside table, most of her underwear drawer, and a variety of clothes for any occasion (heavy on the jeans and comfy T-shirts). Her wrist comp had enough music and books downloaded on it to last her at least a year even if she never had access to the internet again, so she was good to go. 

And finally, the crashed Y-Wing, which she had a small freak out moment over when she realized it was an ACTUAL Star Wars ship (at least she wasn’t the only one, considering the NASA minions were all but doing happy dances as they swarmed it), and the apparently paranoid Police officers’ cruiser (because it had been cloaked in the back parking lot) were now magnetically locked to the bottom of the NASA transports as they flew.

They were now on their way to Washington D.C. to experience the hospitality of eager NASA nerds. _Joy._

Tezza and the clones were seated in the transport amongst a dozen minions who were basically all gawking at the brothers in awe (even Smythe) and the two cops as the cats roamed the cramped seating space curiously, and now she finally had time to explain the cliffhanger she’d left poor Cody and Rex on a good forty-five minutes ago.

Which Cody hadn’t forgotten, since he was the first one to start typing as soon as everyone was settled. (Smythe and Rex followed along on their own wrist comps.)

**Now you have time, please explain how your computers know Aurebesh.**

Tezza, who’d determinedly parked her butt in a seat right beside Cody, who had his helmet between his feet, grinned at the man as he gave her an ‘I’m waiting patiently for this answer for the next five seconds before shit’s going down’ look. **As I said before, this is probably going to sound crazy, but I know pretty much everything about your universe.**

**How?**

**More than a century and a half ago, a man named George Lucas made a movie about the conflict in your galaxy called Star Wars: A New Hope. Since then, we’ve gotten almost constant media content that follows the lives of important people in your universe, yourselves included.** (She left out what the movie was about, considering it was in his future and he wouldn't know who people like Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker were.) 

Cody and Rex gave her identical looks of skepticism mixed with incredulity as Artoo twittered with quiet droid laughter at the end of the aisle. **You’re right. That sounds rather unbelievable.**

“Maybe we should just show them,” Smythe said.

“You got a screen in this thing?”

His smirk was clear even though his slightly foggy face shield. “We’re NASA, what do you think?”

She snorted softly. “You have a screen. All right, but what should we show them? There are way too many options and it has to be something they would recognize. We have no idea where they are in their timeline.”

“Based on their Phase 2 armour, they’re at least half way through the war. We could show them anything from the first year of the Clone Wars.”

“What about Rookies?” one of the other minions said. “If there’s not enough for them to recognize in that episode, nothing is.”

“Good choice, Dawson.” Smythe started pushing buttons on his wrist comp with efficient speed. A paper thin, widescreen digital screen slid down from the ceiling in front of the door to the cockpit, and was just as wide. The Star Wars Inc. streaming website appeared and then he scrolled down to the cartoon category.

 **What’s happening?** Cody typed in after nudging her gently to get her attention.

**We’re showing you an episode of the cartoon show that follows you and the Jedi during the Clone Wars. This one is called Rookies and takes place on the Rishi moon where you meet Fives and Echo.**

Cody and Rex both did a double take, looking at each other in shock. Rex said something with the names in it which she would bet a significant amount of money amounted to, ‘We never told her anything about Jedi, Rishi, Fives, or Echo.’

What Cody typed in next more or less confirmed it.

**Those are brothers we have not mentioned. Either you are a gifted mind reader or we must believe your story.**

As the called for episode started on the screen with Mando'a in Aurebesh subtitles, the brothers only watched through the opening montage by the narrator before Rex quickly typed, **Kriffing hells. We believe your story.**

* * *

**A/N: Next up, back to Anakin and co as they get their own explanations, and then I was thinking we'd come back to Cody and Rex and see their reaction to the Rookies episode. What do you think?**


	11. Proof (part 2)

**A/N: Sooooo, funny story.**

**I was lying on my bed, thinking about this chapter when it suddenly struck me that I epically messed up with Tezza’s plan to have English translated into Aurebesh for the clones to read.**

**All that did was change the alphabet, not the language, so all the clones would see was gibberish words.**

**How did I not realize this sooner? And how did no one else kindly point it out?**

**Anywho, I’ve now adjusted the paragraph in ‘Magnets’ so that the clones are now reading Mando’a written in Aurebesh thanks to a very clever translation program. I figured Mando’a was the most likely second language the clones would know in its entirety thanks to their gene donor and his proximity to them when they were growing up. Huttese was a possibility as well, considering it’s a widely spoken language in the shadier parts of the galaxy and I firmly believe that Anakin would speak it frequently, but I went with Mando’a for sentimental reasons.**

* * *

**Proof (part 2):**

Anakin guided the Sky Angel to follow the large debris retrieval ship until just before entering the atmosphere of the planet called Earth about a third of the way around from the location of wormhole. Then two smaller ships appeared out of the clouds from below; swift and efficient looking single person starfighters by the look of them (that his pilot’s heart was itching to fly, just because). They took up positions in front of him as a clear escort and Anakin followed them instead as the roughly Consular-class cruiser sized ship returned to its job back up in space.

Considering how much more fuel a cruiser sized ship – even a relatively small one compared to a Venator - used to get in and out of atmosphere, he understood the change in escort completely.

From there, it was only a matter of a few minutes for them to land on the roof of a large, sprawling building in the midst of a bustling city where the personal vehicles flew, but stayed in orderly lines near the ground and followed roads that where undoubtedly once designed for flightless travelling vehicles.

Waiting on the roof was a small herd of Humans of various skin tones, proving that once again, Humans had somehow managed to spread far and wide across the known galaxy and into the unknown with their curiosity driven ways. An exploration ship could have landed here thousands of years ago for all Anakin knew. _Maybe even got caught in a wormhole like us._

Anakin powered down Padmè’s yacht and rose to his feet. As he turned, he found that everyone else in the ship had done the same, clearly not willing to be left behind in any fashion today. Since it appeared that the Human delegation waiting for them was friendly – no soldier types in sight – Anakin just sighed mentally and thought, _Whatever. Trying to talk my stubborn-ass family into staying someplace for their own safety is just not worth the headache of losing the battle anyway._

“Come on, then,” he grumbled as they waited for him to take the lead down the ramp. “Let’s go meet these Earth Humans.”

“Let’s,” Obi-Wan said with a smirk hiding under his moustache and a twinkle in his bright blue eyes. (The older Jedi knew perfectly well that Anakin would rather everyone just stay in the ship and not cause any trouble.)

Padmè, even with her lack of Force sensitively, also knew what he was thinking, grinned at him too, with her burnt amber eyes sparkling even more. “It could be worse, Ani… Jar Jar could be here.”

This earned a collective groan and laugh.

“Thank the Force he’s not,” Anakin muttered as they started their descent down to the roof and to the even larger group of people who had come to greet them. Honestly, he was surprised that the pilots of the starfighters didn’t get out of their ships, too. _Maybe they’re under orders to stay put and be ready for anything. We could be hostiles, after all._

He was silently laughing at his own thought when their group came to a stop in front of the much larger group; which literally had people craning their necks and shifting around trying to get a better look at them through the murmuring crowd. _“It’s like they’ve never seen people from other planets before,”_ he thought deliberately loud enough for Ahsoka and Obi-Wan to hear.

 _“Maybe they haven’t,”_ his Master thought back.

 _“But at least one of them knows Huttese,”_ his Padawan pointed out. _“And no one is freaking out because I have horns and lekku instead of hair, so that can’t be it.”_

_“I guess I’ll just have to ask if the opportunity presents itself.”_

Anakin adopted an easy smile that hopefully conveyed that they weren’t going to try and blow up their planet or something equally horrific. Then he said in his first language, “Thank you for allowing us on your planet and retrieving our friends for us.” He paused as a thin, glasses wearing young man who reminded him of Tech but with more hair repeated what he’d said in the planet’s native language. He had no doubt that Threepio was listening intently to everything said and forming a translation program already, all while probably itching to hook into a computer somewhere and download the entire thing the easy way.

A thickly built and tall black haired man with a military short buzz cut was at the front of the group and beside the translator. He carried himself with the easy air of authority of someone very important who knew it but didn’t flaunt it and his gaze met Anakin’s steadily after he’d flicked his eyes over the whole group with only a raised eyebrow of surprise at seeing a Togrutan and a gold protocol droid as well. Despite this, Anakin got the impression the man was just as excited to see them as the rest of his entourage was, but he was much better trained at keeping his cool. Funnily enough, he reminded Anakin of Cody, but with a bigger build and darker eyes.

The man in charge smiled as he heard the translation and then said something that the translator repeated as, “Administer Champilo of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration welcomes you and your friends on behalf of the leaders of Earth who would be here, but there just hasn’t been enough time yet. Your arrival was a bit of a surprise.”

Anakin grinned. “Understandable. This was a rather last minute decision for us as well. We didn’t exactly plan to take a quick vacation via wormhole.”

The translator laughed and once he’d repeated Anakin’s words, so did the large group.

Once they’d settled, Anakin said, “I am Anakin Skywalker and this is my family, for lack of a better term.” He glanced down at Padmè, who’d taken up a position at side, and smiled a little ruefully before returning his gaze to the translator and Champilo. “I’d introduce you to all of them, but we don’t intend to stay long enough for it to matter.”

The translator repeated his words, but he looked like he really wanted to say something else. Champilo spoke and the younger man settled. _Maybe what he wanted to say was the same thing._

“That’s okay,” the translator said with a huge grin, nearly bouncing on his toes. “We know who everyone is already.”

Anakin was taken aback by this, and so was his family, if the way they shifted into alert mode and the feeling of general alarm was anything to go by. “Excuse me?”

The translator nodded quickly. “It’s true. You are the Jedi Knight, Anakin Skywalker. That’s your wife, Senator Padmè Amidala to your left. On your right is your Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Beside Padmè is your Padawan, Ahsoka Tano. And behind you is C-3PO, Gregar Typho, and one of Padmè’s many lookalike handmaidens.”

The fact that the man was correct didn’t make this any less alarming. Especially considering that Obi-Wan hadn’t actually been informed that he and Padmè were married yet. Anakin glanced at Obi-Wan and winced slightly at the look on the older Jedi’s face that was a cross of disapproval, amusement, resignation, and the same alarm Anakin was feeling. How Obi-Wan could express all that with one look was just one of the things that drove him nuts about his Master. (In an exasperated younger brother who still loved his big bro anyway kind of way, of course.)

Anakin focused on the translator again, a glare of warning creeping into his expression and a growl into his tone. “And just how exactly do you know that?”

The other group all shifted back a half step as if they suddenly realized that a predator was on the roof with them. All except Champilo, that is. He just smiled slow and wide and said something that the translator repeated as, “That’s a crazy story, but if you come with me into the building, I will show you.”

Anakin narrowed his eyes at Champilo while he listened to the Force, refusing to take his family into a trap, even if they were all – with the exception of Threepio - more than capable of taking care of themselves. But he sensed no warning in the Force or duplicity in the man. None from the large group with him, either. There was a great deal of eager anticipation, though, mixed in with the wariness that had popped up when his mood changed.

 _“What do you think?”_ he sent to Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, just to double check. Obi-Wan was a master at reading situations and getting to the heart of them in seconds. And Ahsoka was more empathic than both of them combined (a skill that had only increased after their little side trip to the Mortis realm), which made her more sympathetic to others than Anakin could ever be, which was either a blessing or a curse for her, depending on the situation. (In short, the war had given her a tougher shell than she would have ever developed otherwise.)

 _“Despite the strangeness of the situation, I sense they mean well,”_ Ahsoka sent back first.

 _“I agree,”_ Obi-Wan added. _“I sense no reason for us not to go with them. And I AM very curious now to find out how they know us. If they received regular galactic news transmissions out here, you would think they spoke Basic. But they don’t, so that effectively rules the holonews out.”_

_“A Force Seer, perhaps?”_

_“Perhaps. Only way to know for sure is to go with them.”_

_“Well, there are other methods, but you would probably disapprove,”_ Anakin quipped, speaking of forcing someone to just show them with a mind probe; the translator, probably.

 _“You know I would,”_ Obi-Wan said back with a mental eye roll. _“Best say something. They’ve been waiting long enough.”_

Their mental conversation had only taken seconds, but those seconds were still dragging into the awkward. _“Right.”_ Anakin nodded at Champilo. “Lead the way, then. We are all quite curious to hear your explanation.”

“Good, good,” the translator said all on his own, practically vibrating with excitement now. “I can’t wait for you to see this. It’s so freaking awesome.”

Anakin’s curiosity ramped up another degree and he gave the man an amused smile. “I have a feeling you’re right.”

“Oh, I am.” He turned to look at his boss then swung back. “I’m Corben Whitely, by the way. But you can call me Ben.”

Obi-Wan huffed softly at the nickname Anakin had once overhead the Duchess call him, which made Anakin smile wider. And then there was the puppy-like young translator whose eyes kept flicking to Ahsoka with easy-to-read adoration in them. _He’s like a youngling, but he better not get any ideas about my Snips._ “All right. Ben it is.”

Ben turned back to his boss and with only a few words, Champilo was striding through his group of people who parted for him automatically. Anakin and his group followed Champilo and Ben when most of the group made it clear they weren’t going to go first by simply not moving and looking at them.

While they walked, he laced the fingers of his ungloved real hand with Padmè’s right, making her look at him in surprise and then pleased approval, figuring, _What the hell, they know about us now anyway._

They entered a door that turned out to be a large elevator big enough for about twenty people to squeeze into. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case as Champilo indicated with a look that the rest of his group of gawkers should wait for the next trip down, much to their dismay, but they obeyed. _I wonder if the next door over is a staircase that they can dash down? Because I can totally see that group running down the stairs instead of waiting for the lift. They remind me of the fangirls on Coruscant I gained thanks to that stupid news anchor who labeled me ‘The Hero with No Fear’._

As the lift descended, Obi-Wan interrupted his thoughts with a nudge at their bond.

_“Yes?”_

_“Speaking of things you know I would disapprove of, where you ever going to tell me that you were married?”_

Anakin flushed slightly at the gentle reprimand that should have been so much worse, but his former Master knew him better than anyone, with the exception of maybe Padmè and Ahsoka. All of those carefully worded lectures about attachments made sense now if Obi-Wan had already suspected what was going on. He rubbed his thumb over Padmè’s, taking comfort in her presence even though she was the subject of his discomfort. _"_ _Yes. But not till after the war was over and I could leave the Order with a clear conscience.”_

There was a millisecond pause as a flash of sadness and hurt flickered down their bond before Obi-Wan hid it and thought, _“I see. That does make sense. I’ll be sorry to see you go.”_

Anakin gave his Master a pointed look. _“You know, you could leave with me. Marry that Duchess of yours that you love to tell me isn’t your girlfriend despite the sparks that fly between you.”_

Colour bloomed across the Jedi Master’s cheekbones. _“You see too much sometimes, much to my chagrin.”_

 _“And sometimes not enough, according to practically everyone else,”_ he thought darkly, thinking specifically of a certain Master of the Order who seemed to make it his mission in life to make Anakin feel about four years old. Another reason why he couldn’t wait to leave the Order that just felt more and more toxic to him. _“But will you think about it at least? Please?”_

With a huge mental sigh, Obi-Wan thought back, _“Fine. I’ll think about it. It would depend on Satine’s thoughts on the matter, for one thing.”_

Anakin almost sighed out loud in relief; he hadn’t wanted to lose Obi-Wan as a friend if he could help it, and leaving the Order without his Master following his example would mean that Obi-Wan would be encouraged to forget that Anakin had ever existed. _“Good. That’s all I ask.”_

 _“I live to keep you happy,”_ came back the thought, heavy on the sarcasm, that accompanied the hidden smile in Obi-Wan’s pale blue eyes.

Pretending the tease was completely serious, Anakin grinned and retorted with, _“I figured that out years ago.”_

The elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open to reveal a typical office building hallway painted in neutral earth tones and containing many doors at regularly spaced intervals. Almost every door was open and had at least one person standing in it, watching them with wide eyes as they walked down nearly the entire length of the hallway. Just like the gawkers from above, not a single one of them radiated any sort of fearful surprise at seeing a Togrutan or a droid, just curious excitement, indicating that despite their lack of the galactic Basic language, they were familiar with beings other than Humans. _Another contradiction._

Champilo lead them into a large conference room with an oval shaped table and enough chairs for thirty people and closed the door behind them. The bank of windows showed a view of the street two floors below and the office building across it. “Please, sit,” he said via Ben, gesturing to the end of the table closest the side wall that had a blank screen covering most of the upper half of it.

As everyone but Threepio did so – the droid hovered behind Padmè’s chair out of habit in case his mistress needed anything – Champilo pushed the sleeve of his white dress shirt up, revealing a wrist computer not that dissimilar to what was currently attached to Anakin’s right glove, and pushed a few buttons on it.

Shades came down to cover the windows and the screen came to life on the wall. A moment later, the screen was nearly all black with words in an alphabet he didn’t recognize and outlined in a large yellow font. Four letters on top and four letters on the bottom. In a smaller font underneath, three more letters in solid yellow. And in the bottom corner of the screen another abbreviated word in small print followed by the Aurebesh numbers, 2077.

Champilo spoke through Ben.

“Before I move to the next screen, I should start by saying that we know what the Force is but have never found any proof of it on our planet despite how hard we’ve looked. No discernable midi-chlorians in our blood and no powers of the mind.”

Anakin raised an eyebrow at that. “Curious, because I can feel the Force here. It’s not strong like on some planets, but not completely absent either.” He demonstrated by casually taping into the Force and lifting a vase filled with flowers that was in the center of the table. Champilo and Ben blinked at the vase before turning back to Anakin and basically beaming at him like he’d just performed some amazing feat.

“That is good to know. There’s hope for our planet yet.”

“Force sensitivity is rare,” Obi-Wan said in his almost perfect Huttese that sounded very strange in the refined accent of the Coruscanti elite. “Of the trillions upon trillions of intelligent beings in our galaxy, only about fifty thousand of them will be born Force sensitive in a hundred year period. The odds of any given planet having a Force sensitive individual is miniscule.” 

At the crestfallen looks of their hosts, Anakin quickly added, “But it’s possible Earth does have a Force Sensitive or two, you’d just have a hard time finding them unless they did something truly amazing to expose themselves that couldn’t be written off as a trick of the light or whatever.”

They lit up again. “How about telling the story of a galaxy far far away and long ago in minute and hopefully accurate detail?”

Anakin and Obi-Wan glanced at each other as they started to get an inkling of how they were known.

Obi-Wan inclined his head to Champilo. “A very strong Force Seer could do this, yes.”

“Or a family of them?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Champilo said something in his own language under his breath that Ben didn’t translate. Anakin would ask Threepio later if he’d interpreted enough of the language to understand the words. The forties looking man pushed a button on his mini computer and the huge screen changed to show a series of thumbnails. Many of them featured characters that were very familiar.

He - and everyone else in his family – sucked in a breath in shock even though they'd been sort of warned that something like this might show up.

Lightsabres were predominantly featured in almost every picture. He recognized Ahsoka in the first one in the second line. She was in cartoon form, carried two white lightsabres, and maybe five years older judging by the length of her lekku, but it was definitely her. He saw himself (or at least an actor that could have been his brother), Padmè, Obi-Wan, and Master Yoda in quite a few others (again, all with actors that bore striking resemblances to their real selves). There was one that featured the clones, with Rex and Cody front and center, as well as another one with Clone Force 99. Various Mandalorians in traditional beskar armour were heavily featured too. He even saw a thumbnail with blocky cartoon versions of Threepio and Artoo.

“Fragging hells,” Anakin breathed in Basic, not wanting to offend his hosts.

“My sentiments exactly,” Obi-Wan murmured from the chair to his right.

Ahsoka was staring at her cartoon self still with wide eyes. “I have my own picture. And why are my lightsabres white? And where did those awesome hilts come from?”

Because she was mumbling to herself in Basic, no one answered her. Not that Anakin could have anyway, because he didn’t know either. 

After a good two minutes or so of just gawking, Anakin finally tore his eyes off the screen and looked at Ben. “How is this possible?”

Ben answered without bothering to translate for his boss first. “A long time ago, a man called George Lucas made a movie called ‘Star Wars’ that takes place about twenty years from your current timeframe. After that was wildly successful, he made five more movies, and then he and his protégé’, Dave Filoni, made or assisted in the making of more and more movies and television shows that all take place in your galaxy. Even when they died, someone from at least one of their lineages has been involved somehow in almost every single Star Wars project since even though the Lucas family doesn’t own the rights to the franchise anymore; the fans do. They pooled together from all around the world a hundred years after the release of the first movie to buy the franchise from the company that had taken it over from Lucasfilm originally and were ruining it with poorly told stories that we ended up discarding from canon whenever a Lucas or Filoni wasn’t involved somehow in the making of it.”

“That… sounds complicated, but understandable nonetheless,” Anakin said, shaking his head slowly. “I would say that your planet definitely had Force Seers of some strength, even if it was just to get visions of us and what our names were and then made up the stories from there.”

Ben and Administer Champilo had a brief discussion and then Ben smiled tentatively at Anakin. “We’d like to show you one of the movies – Episode Two: Attack of the Clones – and see how accurate it was, if you don’t mind. It takes place just before your Clone Wars and I think you’ll get a kick out of watching yourself woo your wife all over again, terrible pick up lines about sand and all.”

Anakin blushed while Padmè, Dormè, and Ahsoka snickered. Even Typho snorted quietly to himself.

Obi-Wan raised a brow at him, eyes twinkling fiercely as he probably envisioned a couple hours worth of teasing material to pay him back with for all the jabs Anakin had made about his poorly disguised relationship with the Duchess. “Oh, now this I HAVE to see.” Switching to Huttese, the copper haired nerfherder gleefully told Ben, “Play it. We’ll make time to watch it, wormhole or not.”

* * *

**A/N: Remember when I said I was going to keep this story short and wrap it up in about 30,000 words? Well, I lied to myself and you because I am completely incapable of writing anything short. My muse just keeps coming up with more and more ideas to expand every alternate universe that lives in my head and thus it seems that my stories will just go on and on indefinitely. (sigh) Oh well. :P**


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